#smart move by Tropicana

[jimi-rawlings]

Moo£ah Tropicana REIG

Smart Parks

Smart Resorts

(look up Smart Cities)

I have to announce my moves because Prince Harry is saving face for the PONZI SCHEME his grandmother made.

SKIIMASK CHAÁRMS

[jjungkookislife]

Fic Recs 2020 Pt. 1

Seokjin

let’s get married [SMAU] @hangsangwithbts

Summary: seokjin has no intention of getting married, but after facing tremendous pressure from his family to finally settle down, he comes up with the brilliant idea to fake a marriage. the lucky bride just so happens to be you.

voice mail @joonary

summary: kim seokjin is best known around campus for his romance advisory podcast, voice mail, but to you, he’s just your lovable idiot of a best friend. but when he accidentally lets it slip that he’s fallen for one of your fellow peers, you can’t help but be a little bit curious (and quite frankly, a tad bit jealous).

Yoongi

cheers if you agree @out-of-jams

summary: If it weren’t for the fact that he didn’t know who you were or even how to get into contact with you, Yoongi wouldn’t be posting all over Weverse for anyone to see. Not that he thought anyone would be smart enough to put the pieces of the puzzle together with how many people responded to his posts anyway.

snake kisses @peekaboongi

summary: You are grossly unprepared for the snake hybrid that enters your life. Yoongi is quiet and sneaks around you but eventually, even the cold reptile warms up to you.

under construction [SMAU] @luffles424

summary: In which y/n is just trying to figure out what to do with her life with the help from her (un)helpful friends

Hoseok

going once, going twice, sold @bxebxee

summary: But the real reason anything at all started with Hoseok was something much simpler, and probably wholly unexpected - not that you ever planned on any of the other members of the MBA Society to find out.You leave your unlocked phone in his car before stumbling your way into your tiny, studio apartment. And he sees a twitter notification asking you for further discount on your panties.That is all it takes.

just practice @lamourche

summary: The second time you hook up with Jung Hoseok, he doesn’t remember the first time.  You’re surprised.  It was only a few weeks ago, and you were in a broom closet. That has to be different, right? (Well, not really, you’ll learn.)

game over @9uk

summary: your boyfriend has been gaming all day without paying much attention to you. that is until his friends on discord brings up the moaning noises in the background.

you’re my kryptonite @dovechim

summary: Superheroes are immortal, they are everything we are not. The Krypton are a race of superhumans sent down to Earth to protect humans, and they are the epitome of nobility and protection. You have always believed in their immortal, God-like powers, revered and admired them your entire life. Your wish for your very own superhero is granted when you meet Jung Hoseok, a Krypton with the most unique, powerful abilities you’ve ever seen.

Namjoon

first, do no harm @yandere-society

summary: Dr. Kim is well known as the most skilled heart surgeon in the hospital, but when you notice his mortality statistics seem skewered, you discover all is not what it seems. Now, Dr. Kim is offering you a choice: will you join him? Or become yet another broken heart beneath his scalpel?

internet friends [SMAU] @bts-celestials​

summary: meeting through online, namjoon slowly starts to fall for the person who likes all the things he’s into. maybe having friends online is fun.

Jimin

reset @dovechim

summary: We are made of the pieces of what we remember, and we hold in ourselves the hopes and fears of those who love us. As long as there are memories to call our own, there can be no true loss. But Park Jimin has no such privilege.

paparazzi (tw: flash banner) @chinkbihh​

summary: What if the roles were reversed and it was Jimin who was the fan and you who was the idol?  But what if he wasn’t just a casual fan, but an avid fan?  Maybe even a sasaeng…  

Taehyung

the morning after @softlyjiminie

summary: one night, full of passion, whispered promises and heated kisses. one morning, full of regret and unwanted memories. is a night with your ex enough to send you running back into the arms of the devil?

fake love @mygsii

summary: an arranged marriage between you and taehyung leaves behind feelings of bitterness and hatred. will your heart be able to survive, especially when you’ve loved him all your life, or will it fall apart with this marriage?

cheap skate @gukslut

summary: Who doesn’t know Taehyung and his lady? Cutest couple in town, I’d say, and have been since they started dating in their college days. Oh, that was a while ago, though. And still, they’re happy as can be in that place they have together. Almost hate seeing one without the other, y’know, it’s like seeing just one testi- oh, right, I’m not supposed to talk like that. Anyhoo, I only say that because I saw Taehyung at a jewelry store the other day while I was buying my sweet Jiminie his presents. Maybe that boy’s finally gonna pop the question, but I do hope he’s got a good plan for it. Something sweet and romantic. Maybe I’ll find out after Jiminie gets back from that cabin he’s visiting.

baby i @jiminsfault

summary: a one night stand with a stranger leads to so much more than just great sex

Jungkook

only for love [SMAU] @lysjeon

summary: for almost four years it had been just him and sarang, and he had no plans on changing the life they had become accustomed to any time soon, but of course y/n has to come and shake his world.

one time in your room @ubemango

summary: There are papers to write, and virgins to daydream about. (You can think about Jeongguk’s dick later.)

piss off your parents @littlemisskookie

summary: In an effort to piss off your parents you move in with their worst nightmare- a boy with tattoos, a rock band, and an irresistible charm.

departure @nomnomsik

summary: As a flight attendant for Korean Air, you’re scheduled for a thirteen-hour flight to Japan. However, things get intimate between you and your partner and co-pilot, Jeon Jungkook, when he realizes Park Jimin, the famous idol from Korea, broads the plane and blatantly flirts with you.

curiosity @hobidreams

summary: when innocent jungkook comes to you with a not-so-innocent question… you decide it’s easier to just demonstrate.

inkling @gguksgalaxy

summary: Jungkook is your brother’s boyfriend’s co-worker, they own a tattoo and piercing parlour. In other words, he’s tall, gorgeous, has his passion literally etched into his skin, looks incredibly good in a man-bun, and is semi-unattainable for you. Why? Well…you’re not entirely sure but him ditching right after a very heated make-out session sure isn’t a good sign. His extremely poor mood the next week sure isn’t either, but the only way to fix it is to face the beast head-on. Right?

j’aime @baepop

summary: You’re the newest hire at a local café and head barista Jeon Jungkook takes you under his wing.

pop goes the cherry @1oserjk

summary: jungkook comes back home to find you visiting as well, all grown up — in more ways than one.

skirt chasers @1kook

summary: “Baggy clothes are in, but you wouldn’t know that, Miss I Draw Inspiration From Catholic School Girls.”

kiss it better @jincherie

summary: When one goes to Kim Seokjin for advice, it’s almost guaranteed to never end well. This is something Jungkook learns quickly when he mistakenly follows treasured advice to ‘be smart’ and ‘use his assets’. He just did what he was told! Of course, the execution was a bit poor… and embarrassing. But hey, if rocking up to cheer practice in a skirt doesn’t woo your crush, what will?

pay by play @yoonia

camboy!au

deeply poisoned @xmagicxshopx

summary: Kiss me on the lips, a secret just between the two of us. Deeply poisoned by the jail of you. I cannot worship anyone but you and I knew the grail was poisoned but I drank it anyway.

speeding ticket @minstrophywife

summary: Caught speeding to get home in time, you find yourself pulled over by a very delicious cop. Perhaps you can talk your way out of the ticket.Or,“I’m afraid I’m going to have to do a cavity search ma’am.”

OT7/Multiple Members

buttercream @minniepetals

summary: you were always adorable in their eyes, sometimes a little too adorable.

dulce periculum @forgottenpasta

summary: Devious and devilish, your two new impish hybrids never miss a chance to torment you for your hopeless attraction to them, knowing exactly what they do to you. But is sly sexuality and enigmatic allure all there is to the tiger and wolf hybrid, or do the depths of their eyes hide something more for you? Part ½

tropicana @dragunjk

summary: groovy punch sippin

amaranthine @koyamuses

summary: As the sole owner of Nightshade, a quaint bed and breakfast on the outskirts of the city, you find pleasure in rising each morning to tend to your guests but behind closed doors and within the shadows, you are the covenant leader to a group of young vampires who have claimed you as their mate.More often than not, your day is brimming with a mix of daily chores and back door deals that ensure the survival of your covenant. However, everything changes when three werewolves come stumbling into your life, all three of them claiming it was your scent that drew them closer as the words true mate ring into the silence.

testosterone boys @kiwiscript

summary: A little end of the year party tradition gets taken too far.

operation love letters @ve1vetyoongi

summary: When every student on campus is going crazy about a survey that claims to make true love bloom, your best friend manages to convince you to join in on the fun — except you’re disappointed to find out that your results just seem to be lost causes. That is until a love letter from a mysterious secret admirer turns up and you find yourself on a mission to find the person behind the pen — but you quickly realise it’s going to be a lot harder than you initially thought when you have 7 possible bachelors to investigate, right? Operation: Love Letters a-go!

our princess @iridescentjin

summary: In your newly established poly relationship, you are intimate with both Taehyung and Seokjin at the same time for the first time.

[gothpanda]

A Little Bit of Attitude Ch.23: I’m So Stupid

WORD COUNT: 5.9K

A/N: Jesus I had a rough week  Enjoy this chapter!!

WARNINGS: Language, Drug use, aggressive nature 

TAGS: @madamsixx​

Read on Ao3

Previous/Next

July 23, 1985

Sammi stared down at her hands, tap anxiously on the green table of the booth she sat in. The diner was running slow for a Wednesday, only a handful of people spread out in the restaurant. Sammi kept looking at her watch then to the door, reconsidering even being here. A waitress would come from time to time to see if Sammi needed anything, only getting turned down. Maybe Sammi shouldn't have come so early. The glass doorbell ring made Sammi's ear perk up like a fox, looking straight ahead of her. Except instead of Vince, it was an older man with a small happy child who had a smile on their face. Sammi scuffed to herself, beginning to bite the nail on her thumb. It wasn't until she heard the bell ring again that Sammi saw Vince's face, standing there without knowing what to do. He scratched the back of his head, slowly walking up to the booth. Sammi swallowed away her nerves, hugging her body for comfort. Sliding into the booth, Vince took off his jean jacket and gave a small smile to his ex-girlfriend.

"Hi," said Vince, holding his hands together.

"Hey, Vince, how have you been?" asked Sammi, taking a sip of water.

"Not much different from the last time you saw me. Sharise is busting my ball for no reason," complained Vince. Sammi stayed quiet from the sound of her name, looking at her nails. "So, you wanted to talk finally?"

"Yeah, I think I've had enough time being a bitch to you," said Sammi, reaching inside her purse. She pulled out a folded sheet of a notebook paper, bullet point thoughts all scribbled down to a mess. Vince scowled at Sammi, raising a questionable eyebrow at the girl.

"You have a list of shit?" asked Vince, wrinkling his nose.

"Yes, because I rather read off a list then run off emotions," Sammi said, scanning over what she wrote down. "As I said, I've had enough time being a bitch to you,"

"I wouldn't say a bitch. It's not like I didn't deserve any of it. Except maybe that bottle to my head," joked Vince. Sammi took a deep breath, laying the paper flat on the table for even Vince to see some thoughts. Sammi bit her lip, feeling her heart beating so fast in her chest, and she couldn't help calm it down. After a bit of silence, Sammi looked Vince right in the eyes that she loved so dearly.

"First off, when did you two meet exactly?" asked Sammi, swallowing the knot in her throat. Vince rubbed the sweat off his jeans, coughing to clear his throat.

"It was back in May when Tropicana was brand new. It was one of the nights you wanted to stay at your parents' place, I met up with some guys to drink with and ended up there," answered Vince, grabbing a sugar packet to keep his hands busy.

Sammi nodded, "And when you met her, did you two immediately hook up?"

"No! No. She just gave me a lap dance and kept flirting with me all night, but we didn't kiss or anything," replied Vince, biting his lip.

"So when did you two exactly have sex? Because I doubt you got her pregnant off a one time moment in August," Sammi bit the inside of her cheek, looking out the window to compose herself from any tears.

"July, I guess. I don't remember the exact fucking date. I just know that it was one of the nights you weren't feeling like going out," explained Vince, dropping his head into his hands' palm. Sammi shook her head, dabbing the corner of her eye to catch any tears from falling.

"So it went on for months? You had sex with her multiple times?" asked Sammi with a stern voice. Vince nodded sheepishly. "And you still fucking went back even after you got her pregnant. Then you got mad at me for having a good time when you ditched me for her back at Purple Moon! Oh my god," gasped Sammi, covering her face in her hand then pushing away hair that fell out of place.

"I didn't ditch you for her! I didn't know. She didn't even know! We only had sex max five times when I got crossfaded; it meant nothing,"

"Clearly, if you acted as if you didn't do anything. I thought for almost a full year; you were such a great boyfriend. You made me feel so happy, and yet you were sitting on this lie. You were lying every day," uttered Sammi, looking straight into Vince's eyes with tears building up. "Why? Why weren't you happy with just me?"

Vince slumped in his seat, finally feeling the heartbreak he caused to Sammi. He could finally see the sadness that came from his mistakes. Vince only received anger from Sammi after everything. He received Sammi's attitude tenfold, the rudeness, and the foul language. Vince never saw Sammi cry from the pain he caused, not even the first time he fucked up. "I was happy with you," whispered Vince, feeling his cheek flush with embarrassment. "I just don't know when to say no, especially now being a big shot rockstar. Now, look at me. I'm a dad who killed his friend, and everyone hates me,"

"I should have never gotten mad at you that night outside of Rainbow. I guess… I would get mad at you for doing dumb shit because I kept making mistakes behind your back. I wanted you to stay the same perfect Samantha. The one who was always ahead of everyone with a kind smile on her face," expressed Vince, having some sort of courage to look right in Sammi's eye when he spoke to her.

"I'm not perfect, Vince, nor will I ever be. Just because I have a different life than you doesn't make me better or lesser than you," said Sammi, looking back down at the piece of paper.

When did they meet?

When did they first hook up?

Ask if he regrets anything.

Ask if he was ever going to tell me.

Talk about him moving on so fast.

Ask if he's okay

Admit, I'm sleeping with Nikki. Fuck that.

"I don't hate you. I want you to know that," admitted Sammi, folding the piece of paper in her hands, stuffing it back in her handbag. "Do you regret anything you've done to me?"

"Yes, I regret being a manwhore to you. You had a point even back then in the beginning," mumbled Vince. "Do you regret being with me? After all the shit I put you through," asked Vince. Sammi looked down at the table, pondering on her emotions to answer Vince. It was a thought she said to herself after everything. Sammi knew everything people go through has a purpose and a lesson. It was great to be with Vince, but now thinking how half of it being based on a sitting lie, it hurts even more.

"It's funny. I keep telling myself I should've just been cold to you guys when I saw you all, and maybe I'd be okay. I don't regret being with you because a lot of fun came from it. I just wish it didn't end like I expected," confessed Sammi, wiping away a single tear that came down her face.

"I'm sorry for hurting you. Do you know if you can ever forgive me?"

"I want to, but maybe let's wait a while,"

"I figured… I'm also sorry about being paranoid about Nikki. Guess I'm a hypocrite for assuming," said Vince, shaking his head like he was dumb to think such a thing. Sammi bit her lip, anxiously bouncing her leg under the table from the words Nikki. Sammi knew everyone would find out soon enough, but hearing Vince calling himself a hypocrite just made it harder ever to spill the secret.

"It's okay. I forgive you for that," Sammi bit her tongue, knowing damn well she was wrong in this department. Vince smiled at Sammi, feeling like he was going in the right direction with his favorite girl. "If you didn't get caught, were you ever going to tell me?"

Vince looked out for a moment, trying not to lie to make himself look good. "Yeah, I was. After stopping I kept thinking about it, but then more shit got into the mix," Sammi could see the pain in Vince's eyes from talking so much, realizing this is most likely the most, he's opened up in a long time.

"Vince… be honest with me. Are you okay? How have you been doing with everything?" asked Sammi, resisting the urge to hold Vince's hands from across the table. Vince let out a heavy breath, going back to messing with the sugar packet.

"No, I'm not. I have to be completely sober until my court date. Your brother and his bitch won't shut their fucking mouths about it. Sharise and I fight for everything. And I have no idea how to be a dad," admitted Vince, eyes looking defeated to Sammi.

"You haven't done drugs? Or drank?" Vince shook his head. "Since the incident?" Sammi asked again in disbelief of a sober Vince.

"Yeah. I have to go get tested each week. This has been the soberest I've been since I was 15," said Vince.

"Tommy and Nikki shouldn't be on your ass for being a responsible person. I'll yell at them to stop bothering you if you need me to," offered Sammi, reaching out to hold Vince's hands. Vince didn't protest, enjoying the tiny bit of affection he received that wasn't sexual. It was just the needed kindness he desperately craved.

"It's okay, Sammi. I'm a grown man, and I should do things on my own. Even if it means my own band hates me for it," answered Vince, gently rubbing his thumb on the back of Sammi's hand. Sammi looked down at their hands, smiling to herself but kept reminding she isn't really a single woman. "But I appreciate the offer. Since you're so smart, do you have any advice for being a dad, or can you do that for me also?" joked Vince, smirking at Sammi.

Sammi couldn't help but giggle with Vince's joke, feeling like everything was back to normal. "No, I don't. You're just going to have to talk to Sharise about being a dad. Also, isn't your daughter like a month old or something? You have time to get better," said Sammi.

"Skylar. Her name's Skylar," smiled Vince.

"That's a pretty name. I'm sure you will have enough time to be a better dad to Skylar," reassured Sammi, squeezing Vince's hands.

"Thank you. Listen, I really appreciate this. I miss being able to talk to someone my shit," said Vince. Sammi smiled at Vince, beginning to play with fingers and pop them as if the two were back to being the normal them. "I even miss you popping my fingers. I guess you really do take things for granted until they're gone,"

"As much as I love an open and meaningful Vince, did you just learn that shit in probation rehab or?" asked Sammi, cracking a smile that made Vince laugh.

"Yeah. Yeah, I fucking did," admitted Vince, laughing along with Sammi. "But hey, it's an improvement! am I right?"

"It definitely is an improvement for sure," said Sammi, relaxing back in the booth. The two held hands for longer than needed, reminiscing on the feeling from the pasts. Vince couldn't help to think of how this wasn't like Sharise. He and Sharise never had a moment of comfortable silence, even after the nights of sex. It felt fast-paced and no ounce of peace compared to how Sammi loved gentle moments. Those moments where Sammi would dance her finger on Vince's scalp, making him relax while watching tv. The moments of Vince hugging Sammi from behind as she studied hard in his office space, giving her any feeling of reassurance. Vince was beginning to remember how bad he ruined this good thing in his life. Sammi didn't know what to say or do, only kept close before leaving and going back to Nikki.

*

August 9, 1985

Los Angeles, California

Sammi and Athena strut down Hollywood Boulevard, smiling and laughing with the wind playing up in their hair. Sammi glanced down on her wrist, seeing her brand new watch read 3:30 in the afternoon. The day was beautiful for the boys to start their tour, wind cooling the California summer heat and not a cloud in the sky. The Bass sisters had a day off to surprise Tommy and the boys while they did soundcheck, everything feeling perfect for once. After a short walk from the public parking garage, Athena opened the Hollywood Pantages Theatre's massive doors. The roadies were pacing around at the front of the theatre, putting up a table of merchandise of shirts, posters, and records. Sammi glanced around the grand entrance with glee until her eyes fell on a woman and a brand new blonde baby in her arms. Sammi froze from a distance, Athena standing next to her sister to catch Sammi's eyes on Sharise standing with a tiny Skylar.

Sharise bounded Skylar in her arms, seeming tired and irritated all at the same time until finally noticing the Bass sisters look at her. She forced a smile to Sammi, slowly approaching them in the center of the entrance. Athena laced her arm around Sammi's, standing in as the protective sister she was. Sammi almost held her breath, couldn't keep her eyes off Skylar.

"Hi, Sammi. Hi, Athena. How have you girls been?" asked Sharise with a kind smile.

"We've been good, Sharise. How's being a new mama?" asked Sammi with no anger in her heart, smiling as if she was catching up with an old friend.

"Crazy. I had no idea how much one baby can be such a handful. It isn't easy when you feel like you're doing it alone," vented Sharise, smiling at Skylar look at Athena and Sammi in curiosity.

Sammi smiled at the baby. "Hi, Skylar! Aren't you just the prettiest little girl," cooed Sammi making Skylar laugh a bit.  

"Vince isn't helping you?" asked Athena, frowning deep 11 lines between her brows.

"No, he tries but gives up and just looks at me to finish everything. He's also under a lot of stress with touring and his court date. I'm sure he vented to you about it," said Sharise to Sammi, pressing her lips hard together.

"Um… yeah, he did, but I told him to talk to you about it. You and Vince can help each navigate being brand new parents together," uttered Sammi, playing with her hands to ease the nerves.

"Thank you for trying. I don't think I'll see that happening anytime soon," mumbled Sharise, trying to keep Skylar from jumping out of her arms. For being two months old, she had the capability of moving around fast, almost like her daddy. It was cute to everyone but hard for Sharise to keep her still when necessary. Skylar's arms popped up wide from her little chest, reaching out for Sammi to hold her. Sharise tried to make Skylar stop moving, but it only resulted in Skylar letting out small cries.

"I think she wants Sammi to hold her?" questioned Athena, switching glances between the two girls.

"Oh no, you don't have to, Sammi. I get it if it's uncomfortable," offered Sharise.

"Honestly, it's not. I'm completely okay holding little Skylar," said Sammi, reaching out to hold the baby, slowly switching between her and Sharise. Sammi bounced Skylar in her arms, seeing a bright smile that almost resembled Vince's. Skylar rested her head on Sammi's shoulder, feeling very at peace in Sammi's even though she was a complete stranger. Athena and Sharise gawked in shock at the baby's reaction, seeing how gentle and kind Sammi appeared.

"Wow. You're the first person she's felt comfortable with that wasn't family," admitted Sharise, not knowing if she favored this or not. Sharise knew she was the other woman who got in between Sammi and Vince, but she wasn't used to the kindness she was receiving.

"I guess babies just love me. Jesus, you're gonna look just like your dad. I can already see it," said Sammi to Skylar in a cute voice, making her smile. Sharise slightly shaking her head at Sammi's statement.

"You were on your way to see Vince or?" asked Athena.

"Yeah, since he's gonna be on tour, I thought I'd visit family in Nebraska. I really don't like being alone in that big house," said Sharise, fixing her hair.

"Well, in that case, let's see them before they ditch this place," announced Athena, heading right to the theatre doors.

"You can keep carrying her if you want. She really likes you," said Sharise, following Athena's footsteps. Sammi followed behind with Skylar quietly resting on her hip, almost falling asleep. The theatre was ginormous, having an upstairs for extra people to sit. The album cover was drawn big on the center stage as roadies continued to set up amps and instruments. The three girls could see Vince sat in the front row seats, isolated from the guys on the stage. Sammi could tell Nikki appeared more irritated than before, sipping on his soda with a sulking stare. Tommy and Mick talking among themselves, soon seeing the women come closer. As the girls reached the stage, Sammi stood right in front of Vince, smiling mischievously.

"Surprise! I have your child," said Sammi, Skylar noticing her dad seated down in front of them now. She began cooing in excitement, reaching out for Vince as he stood up from the red velvet chair.  

"Uhh, why are you here? And why do you have my child?" asked Vince, lifting his daughter out of Sammi's arms, giving her a kiss on the forehead.

"What? I can't come to visit my brother and friends at work? Also, Skylar wanted me!" said Sammi, crossing her arms, still smiling pridefully while Sharise stood right by her. Vince switched looks between the two women, unable to say anything that came into his head. 'They're  acting like friends?'  thought Vince, also seeing the confused looks from the rest of Motley.

"Skylar has found someone to like that isn't related to us. Isn't that nice for our little girl?" said Sharise, showing her annoyance for Vince already after a few words. Athena could see the tension needing to be cut with a knife, stepping over to Sammi to grab her hand and watch this drama from a distance. Sammi smiled at the couple, heading towards Nikki, Tommy, and Mick, who also wanted to see the show. Nikki shook his head at Sharise and Vince, Sammi boosting herself up to sit right next to him on stage. Athena standing right by Mick, who strummed on his guitar.

"Is this bring your fucking girlfriend to work day?" whispered Nikki to everyone, Tommy giggling.

"Wish I had a girlfriend," mumbled Mick with sadness, sipping the water bottle he always carried. Athena softly reassured Mick, placing a delicate hand on his shoulder.  

"I know Mick, I know," muttered Nikki, seeing Sammi staring right at him with a scowl. "Can I help you?" asked Nikki, getting closer to Sammi's face, making her break into an almost smile.

"Who else's girlfriends have been coming in today?" asked Sammi, raising an eyebrow in question. Nikki smirked and chuckled, hinting as to who else has come to the venue without exposing them. He really did like reaching the edge of getting caught. Sammi could see Sharise grab Skylar out of Vince's arms in the short distance, saying a monotone goodbye and turning on her heels to the door. Vince didn't hold back his somber face, hearing Skylar cries echo throughout the theater. Sammi caught Vince's eyes, giving a sympathetic smile to reassure him. Vince just stayed in his seat to sulk.

"Heather came today before going to pick up her parents. I'm having dinner with them tonight before we head out on Saturday after this show," said Tommy, stealing a sip of Mick's water bottle. "Where… I will propose…" mumbled Tommy, coughing. Athena and Sammi whipping their heads fast with big eyes at their older brother.

"You're proposing?!" yelled out the Bass sisters in unison. Everyone in the building turned their heads to the sisters, beginning to eavesdrop. Sammi jumped off the stage, standing right in front of Tommy with arms crossed, ready to lecture him as if he were a child. Vince came up from his seat, almost slamming against Sammi with his jaw dragging on the floor.

"You wanna get married?!" asked Vince frantically, frowning at the drummer.

"How long have you two even been dating? Trust me, it's not been long!" said Athena, restraining herself from raising her voice.

"I know, but I feel confident about Heather! Mama and Dad love her, which is great, and look how nice she is! You guys always know I wanted to get married to someone I love," explained Tommy, dropping to his feet to the ground and standing up for himself.

"Dude, the last girl you wanted to marry called me a cunt, and I almost punched her. Why can't you just wait a year?" expressed Sammi, frowning with deep concern. Tommy scratched his head, looking down at feet with everyone staring at him.

"It's different this time. I swear it really is and come on I know you girls love her too. Can I just please have my two favorite people be on my side? Please?" begged Tommy, smiling down at his sisters. Athena and Sammi exchanged looks of worry melting away with the love they had for their brother.

"Fine, you're right. If you're thrilled with Heather, then I guess we should be too. Right, Sammi?" asked Athena, nudging Sammi with her elbow.

"Yeah. She is pretty nice," mumbled Sammi, smiling at Tommy. Tommy hugged Athena and Sammi so tight it almost made Sammi regret being sweet. Sammi pushed away from the group hug, seeing Vince on the verge of wanting to speak to her. Nikki grabs Mick's water bottle, jumping off the edge of the stage to hang an arm around Vince's shoulders.

"Want some water, Vince? Made a mint too?" asked Nikki, chuckling at Vince's discomfort of being sober. Sammi rolled her eyes, pushing Nikki's arm off of Vince, gaining a smile from the blonde and a scowl from Nikki.

"Leave him alone, Nikki. You shouldn't be tempting him like that," scolded Sammi.

"Why? He's a big boy. If he wants to break he little sobriety that's on him," said Nikki, poking Vince in the cheek only to get his hand slapped away. Sammi shook her head, narrowing eyes to Nikki, becoming peeved on the way he was behaving.

"You're such an asshole, Nikki," spat Sammi, looping her arm onto Vince's and pulling him away from everyone. "Come on, Vin, I need a smoke already," Vince didn't object to Sammi, surprised but still smiling at the gesture. Nikki stared at the two walkings off, mouth opened slightly as if he was the one who should be offended.

"Oh, so you two are friends now?" shouted Athena. Tommy looked in disbelief, but with some sort of happiness that the two were friendly again.

"Yeah!" yelled Sammi, pushing open the doors and heading straight to the main doors. Sammi let go of Vince's arm, searching in her purse for her pack of cigarettes until Vince held up two cigarettes. She happily took for herself, leaning towards her own lighter and passing it to Vince. She inhaled for a moment, feeling the smoke relax her until Sammi blew it out into the wind. Sammi side-eyed Vince seeing him smile with glee while smoke aside her.

"What's that smile for?" asked Sammi with a smirk on her lips

"Just find it enjoyable when you call out people on rare occasions. Such a loudmouth for such a tiny body," said Vince.

"You could say you're welcome to get Nikki off your back," suggested Sammi, shrugging her shoulders while keeping the same energy.

"Thank you. I highly appreciate it," smiled Vince. "I swear I don't know how I'm going to be able to be on a bus with those guys, mainly Nikki,"

"I'm sure it won't be as bad as you think," reassured Sammi, stepping on the small cigarette bud.

"Really? I'm sober while the rest of my band is too high or drunk to know what's going on. I mean, look at our album, it's crap!" vented Vince.

"It can't be crap if it's doing so well," said Sammi.

"Have you ever listened to the album? The whole thing?" asked Vince, seeing Sammi shake her head. "Okay, so what songs have you heard?"

"Home Sweet Home…" muttered Sammi.

"The only good original song plus the cover we did. That's it! Nikki was too high to write actual good songs,"

"He's written with coke in his system before, and it's been fine. It's just one album that you don't like. Pretty sure every one band member in any band has felt like that," said Sammi, moving to be right next to Vince on the wall. Vince frowned at Sammi, giving her pity on her oblivion.

"Sam, Nikki's been doing more than just coke lately. You haven't seen the tiny tracks on his arm?" asked Vince, raising an eyebrow.

"What?" questioned Sammi, blinking rapidly.

"He's been shooting up. He's doing heroin and mixing coke and something else with Tommy. You really haven't noticed?" said Vince, stepping on his cigarette to get another one. Sammi stared at Vince in disbelief, not wanting to think of Nikki going back to heroin after being together. After he promised he wasn't going to do it again.

"I'm an idiot," whispered Sammi, dropping her head into the palm of her hand. "So he never stopped? Even after the studio incident?" Vince shook his head to Sammi, only making her huff.

"Did he tell you he was going to stop?" asked Vince, taking a drag from his cigarette. Sammi nodded, looking down at the ground. "And when did he tell you that?"

"Back in February. I went to his house and tried talking to him after what happened to you. I flushed the rest of the shit he had in his room," confessed Sammi, looking at Vince with sad eyes.

"Clearly, that didn't stop him. Please don't tell me he got angry at you for flush his drugs down the toilet," said Vince, turning his body to face Sammi.

"He grabbed my wrist really hard but apologized after. That was it. God, I'm so stupid for believing him!" yelled Sammi, feeling her cheeks turn red from embarrassment. Vince sighed, stepping on his cigarette, slowly wrapping his arm around Sammi's shoulders. Sammi didn't reject the hug, her arm finding Vince's waist and resting her head on his chest. Vince rubbed Sammi's arm for comfort, resting his chin on the top of his former girlfriend's head.

"It's not your fault Sammi for having a big heart. You just have to realize you're talking to four men who don't listen to anything. Even if we know we're doing something completely wrong," calmly said Vince, being the one to get reassurance for once in a long time.

"So what, you guys are just gonna slowly kill yourselves?"

"Look, you can try as hard as you want to get to Nikki because I know he mildly listens to you, but don't be sad if nothing happens," said Vince, letting go of Sammi and digging his hands in his jean pockets. "And try not to flush his drugs again. I wouldn't want to beat his ass for hurting you," Vince pinched Sammi's cheek, making her smile like always, not knowing if they should head back to soundcheck.

"Okay… I'll take your advice," mumbled Sammi, giving Vince a proper hug.

"You'll what?" asked Vince with a cunning smile, squeezing Sammi with his arms. Sammi began laughing out loud to Vince, trying her best to break out of the hug.

"I said I'll take your advice! Jesus, stop squeezing me!" ordered Sammi, breaking to giggles as Vince still kept a tight grip on the small girl. "What is it gonna take for you to let me go!?" asked Sammi, almost falling back.

"Say I'm your best friend who's right for once," shouted Vince, leaning forward to make Sammi bend backward, his laughs muffled against Sammi's shoulder.

"No!" Vince squeezed Sammi a bit harder, "Fine! You're my best friend who's actually right for once in his life!" shouted Sammi, finally being released by Vince's grip, seeing him have a shit-eating grin on his face. "Happy?'

"Yep!" said Vince, about to head back inside until Sammi took hold of his wrist. "What?"

"Well, 'best friend,' you're not gonna tell me why Sharise looked like she hated you earlier?" asked Sammi, raising an eyebrow.

Vince huffed, "I haven't been able to talk to her. She keeps running off on me to her friends or family. Please, I don't want to talk about it anymore. The fact you two looked like friends today weirded me out," said Vince, opening the doors to the theater.

"Hey, in my defense, Skylar likes me some odd reason!" shouted Sammi, following Vince.

"In that case, do you want to babysit and teach me to be a dad?" teased Vince, smiling at Sammi rolling her eyes.

"In your dreams," said Sammi, jabbing her elbow in Vince's side.

*

A hard knock echoed in Sammi's apartment, halting Sammi from draining the pasta she had boiling. She checked the analog clock that hung on her wall, wondering who would stop by out of the blue. After turning off the stove, Sammi opened the door without caution, surprised to see an upset Nikki standing in the hallway. Nikki rose there in the same dark vest and button-down from earlier, eyes tired as always.

"Why are you here? I didn't invite you over," asked Sammi, crossing her arms against her chest. Nikki pushed past Sammi, stomping into the apartment, sitting right down on the small dining table. He looked over the breakfast bar seeing the stem coming from the stove, nodding with approval.

"I thought since you were quiet to me after your smoke with your little ex, I'd drop by. Here to remind you what you got in your bed," said Nikki, leaning back against the chair with one arm resting on the back. Sammi closed her front door, stepping towards Nikki with a great distance.

"Please don't tell me you're jealous of Vince now? I already dealt with enough of that from him," said Sammi, leaning against the wall.

"I don't get jealous. Now, where's my dinner?" sniffed Nikki, wiping at his nose and bouncing his leg fast as he couldn't look Sammi in the eye.

"At your house. Where you keep your heroin," spat Sammi, getting Nikki to look her in the eye, his face going almost pale compared to olive skin. Sammi inhaled deeply, ready to fight with Nikki as her blood began to boil. Nikki stayed silent, trying to think of some bullshit lie to Sammi.

"Who told you that? Vince? You're really going to believe Vince, the guy who cheated on you?" asked Nikki, scowling at Sammi with deep wrinkles in-between his eyebrows.

Sammi shook her head, standing up straight. "Yeah, I am. Because him being sober from drugs means he sees shit when I'm not there. I know you're shooting up again! And I know you're doing some other shit drug with my brother!" yelled Sammi, pointing her finger right at Nikki. Sammi could see the discomfort on Nikki's face, him shifting in his seat, unable to even look unguilty.

"He's lying! I'm not doing it! You don't see me do that shit!" shouted Nikki, standing up to Sammi, getting closer to her face. Sammi stepped back a bit, glaring up hard at Nikki's dark eyes.

"Yeah, when you're here! I don't know what you do when you leave in the middle of the night! Or when you're by yourself in your house! How come we never go there anymore, huh?" demanded Sammi, pushing Nikki in the chest. Nikki stumbled back for a moment, flaring his nostrils from the sight of Sammi.

"Did you tell your little boyfriend about us then? Huh? You had to if you two decided to talk shit about me," muttered Nikki, getting right up close to Sammi, her back slamming against the wall. Sammi felt scared but knew she had to stand her ground in this situation, even if it resulted in something terrible.

"No, I didn't. Only how I flushed your drugs the last time, and you gripped my wrist. Are you going to admit it, or do I have to raid your room again and wait for you to hit me?" said Sammi, inhaling shakingly. Nikki took a few steps back, glaring at Sammi. Nikki then kicked one of the dining chairs, sending it flying across the room, almost breaking it. Sammi jumped in fear, covering her mouth from almost yelping, eyes open wide.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Sammi! Why do you give a shit if I'm shooting up!? I'm not offering it to you! You do coke, Ms. College Graduate! So why do you give a fuck?!" yelled Nikki, ready to pull his hair out of his head.

"Because it's dangerous! You can die if you go too far! Why would you throw all of this away for some drug?!" shouted Sammi, staying far away from Nikki. "And when I do coke, I fucking stop for MONTHS, alright?! I don't go on benders like the rest of you,"

"Yeah, because you think you're better than us. Just because we're not some assholes wearing a suit and tie to work with a stupid piece of paper," mumbled Nikki.

"Oh shut up, Nikki. Get that shit out of your head and get the fuck out of my apartment!" ordered Sammi.

Nikki narrowed his eyes at Sammi, walking closer to her only to have Sammi step away from him. "You're sure about that, Samantha?"

"Yes, I am, because you and I are fucking done! Whatever we are, we are done! I'm not dealing with your shit while you spiral out of control," said Sammi. Nikki didn't bother to move from where he stood, seeing if Sammi was only bluffing. "Get out! I want you out! Get the fuck out!" shouted Sammi, moving behind Nikki and pushing towards the door. She didn't restrain herself, pushing him harder and more aggressive as they got to the door. Nikki couldn't stop Sammi, shocked at the small girl's anger. Sammi yanked the door open, pushing Nikki out of her apartment with all her force.

"Sammi wait-" Sammi slammed the door right on Nikki's face, dropping herself to the floor. She let her head fall on her knees, a sob escaping her lips. Sammi felt the same sadness she once felt when discovering Vince cheating on her. She couldn't stop thinking how much of an idiot Sammi was for not paying attention. Sitting on the floor to let her sorrows out was the only thing Sammi wanted to do. She cried out alone like Sammi had been for some time now, almost like a repeated cycle since knowing all of Motley Crue.

[strongislandsuperfan]

The Ghost of the UFL

With the rise of alternative football leagues beginning to take shape and gain traction, many are fascinated with what these alternative leagues have to offer, in terms of talent, team locations and what will separate them from the dominance of the National Football League. Also, we see many fans losing faith in a proud, American sports league that, unofficially, owned a day of the week. 

As we witness the fast-growing rise of Alliance of American Football (AAF), the long-awaited comeback of the XFL (debuting in 2020), the perseverance of the Arena Football League (which no matter how many times they go bankrupt, they still find a way back) and the emergence of The Indoor Football League, The National Arena League, and other leagues beginning to take shape, I can’t help but to be haunted by cringeworthy mistakes of alternative leagues.

Now, mind you, I want these leagues to succeed, as long as they are wise enough to learn from past mistakes of others who have tried and have impressively failed.

I will not bore you with antidotes and ill-fated stories of the 1980′s catastrophe known as The United States Football league. In fact, I give them a pass, based on the fact that they debuted 2 years before I was born and on the simple fact that they were just a mirror reflection of the failed glitz and glam of the decade of excess, cocaine, bad business decisions and the fascinating, money-driven enigma that is currently our commander-in-chief. Instead, I will focus on the most recently failed and forgotten United Football League. 

In case you have forgotten or never heard of them, The United Football League was the last league to try to directly compete with the NFL, beginning their season during the spring of 2009. The idea was to first, “soft-launch” the league with games on Thursday and Friday nights and eventually hold their own as a developmental league. A similar plan that mirrored the likes of the Arena Football League.

Unlike the first year of the XFL, the games were actually pretty exciting. From a marketing standpoint, they seemed to do everything right. They even had a TV deal going, with possible web streaming of live games as well. 

For the UFL’s first season, the markets chosen were New York City, Las Vegas, Orlando, and San Francisco. The league had a short schedule (6 games), with 3 home games in the same stadium in only one of their selected cities, Las Vegas. Not to mention that the San Francisco team (affectionately named the California Redwoods) had the worst attendance in the league.

The UFL was unable to secure a solid deal for a stadium within New York City, forcing the league to have them play one home game each in Hartford, Connecticut, on the campus of my alma mater, Hofstra University, located in Long Island, and in New Jersey. 

In addition, one of the games for Orlando’s team was played at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, in part because of shared ownership that year with the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team. This partnership faded the following year in 2010. 

Oh and if I didn’t mention this, the names of the respective teams (I tried not to laugh) from the season debut:

The Florida Tuskers

New York Sentinels

Las Vegas Locomotives

The California Redwoods

The Florida Tuskers finished 2009 with a 6–0 record. The Las Vegas Locomotives were next at 4–2, the California Redwoods were 2–4, and the Sentinels were last at 0–6. The Locomotives played the Tuskers in the 2009 UFL Championship Game; the Locomotives won the title thanks to a field goal in overtime.

After the first year, expansion came, with new teams debuting in Omaha, Nebraska and Virginia Beach, Virgina, the New York Sentinals relocating to Hartford, Connetticut, the California Redwoods moving from San Francisco to  Sacramento, and of course failed bids for other cities such as: 

Austin, Texas

San Antonio, Texas

Chattanooga, Tennessee

Salt Lake City, Utah

Portland, Oregon

Los Angeles, California

Louisville, Kentucky (<---this city made the most sense, in my opinion)

Columbus, Ohio

Jackson, Mississippi (<-----yes, you read that right. Its not a typo.)

As well as international markets considered in London, Mexico City and Monterrey.

The UFL folded in 2013, with lawsuits from players, coaches, and staff for not being paid their salaries by league owners. Business licenses expired, marketing failed as the league made a dismal effort in trying to engage an audience, and of course, the executives simply stopped paying the league’s bills (and clearly stopped caring).

The ownership lost or settled most of the lawsuits against them in 2014.

So, with all that being said, why focus on the failure? I’ll put it this way, many football fans, including me, are fed up with the pettiness, over-blown controversies, the “stand or kneel” for the anthem debate, players trying to do their best Ike Turner imitation & somehow feel victimized when they’re banned from the league, referees who look like they couldn’t give a fair call during a little league baseball game  and of course, Roger Goodell. 

We are dying for an alternative, especially when the hype dies down after Super Bowl Sunday. We want innovation. We want players to be safe. We want to see small market cities finally get a shot at taking on a franchise that they can get excited about. We want old school, smash mouth, gridiron football. We don’t want gimmicks. We don’t want jerk-off billionaires that are completely out of touch with the fanbase, as well as with the players. 

If the AAF, XFL, AFL, NAL and any other league is going to learn a lesson from the most recent failure of the UFL, might I suggest the following advice:

-Be smart with your money, in terms of marketing, contracts and PAY YOUR PEOPLE!

-Have a balance of glitz & glam with grit and blood. Understand, fans miss the days of beautiful footwork and swift movement, courtesy of Walter Payton and Barry Sanders. However, because I am a child of the 80′s and a proud 3rd generation New York Giants fan, we also miss the days of bone-breaking, cranial shattering, hard-hitting action, courtesy of Sir Lawrence Taylor.

-Although I’m not wild about, “soft launches”, please don’t be in a rush to throw everything at football fans in one shot. History needs to be written and if your league is as bigger and better as you are trying to show dogmatic NFL fans, then let the talent speak for itself. Sometimes, the best things take the most time.

-Billionaire owners and ownership groups must be in tune with their audience. Let the fans have a voice. Don’t be the James Dolan of the football world. 

-Please, give small market cities a chance. I can name at least two cities (Louisville, Kentucky and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma), that not only have an audience that can be engaged, with the right marketing, but they are long overdue for a franchise that they can get behind. 

-We are tired of leagues debuting with these new, “innovations”, that the so-called experts try to come up with. We could care less about changing the tuck rule, the no kickoff rule, the intentional grounding penalty and so on and so on. Just play some freakin’ football! 

-Do not try to out-do the NFL. They are what they are. Just stick to what makes your league unique and please, don’t debut in the fall. NFL and NCAA College football clearly own this time of the year. Just let it be....until Roger Goodell does or says something stupid and really loses his audience. 

-Lastly, No more gimmicks! Although I would have to say, the engraved highlight of the XFL was Rod Smart’s brilliantly named jersey:

That is all.

[wgfmp2021]

The Greenery - label design - part 3

Above is the label design I ended up using on all of my bottles.

I focused on strong branding, the labels being bold and universal for all of The Greenery's clients. Most of our clientele is 15-19, however some of our products, such as Beautifier are targeted at people who are above that age range. Even though the products are mainly targeted at people within the age of 15-35, the labels have to attract everyone regardless of their age group.

1. The logo

The original logo is a combination mark that features a bottle and type. My initial idea was to use it on my labels, however, it would not be a good design move. In the visual identity manual it is stated that the minimum size of this logo is 25mm height and it is that way for a very simple reason - if the logo was any smaller, it would be very hard to read. In such situations, it is recommended to use the logotype instead of the combination mark. Since I cannot disobey the rules stated in the visual identity manual, I had to turn down that idea and use the logotype instead. This is when I came across another compilation - since the logotype is wide, there was plenty of empty space above it that needed to be filled somehow. I created a rainbow icon and placed it at the top, above the logotype. I also lowered the logo's position - the baseline is no longer in the same line as the frame, instead it is now slightly lowered. This manipulation has allowed me to keep the logotype as big and visible as possible without cluttering the design. The space from the top of the label to the top of the rainbow is equal to the space from the thick red line to the baseline of the logotype. This makes the whole design look very consistent and tidy.

2. Hierarchy, typography and layout

I believe that the use of hierarchy is very important in every design. While in most cases, it is easy to get away with only using one font, if it's a Sans Serif or Serif font, it is crucial to include a hierarchy of some sort - whether it is using different sizes or thickness - to highlight certain parts of the design and make it look clearer. Each part of the text in my label design was made using the same font with different thickness and size. Considering the logo only consists of typography, I also had to divide it from the rest of the label somehow and since I couldn't make it any bigger, I used a red stripe as a divider. Below are screenshot of a version without the use of hierarchy and the final design for comparison - it shows how details like these can change the design completely.

All of the labels have the same layout:

name of the smoothie

a short slogan

the flavour icon

ingredients

volume of the bottle - white on purple because of high contrast and saving as much space as possible

Using this type of layout makes the labels very logical for the customer and it's also another way to make the hierarchy very clear for everyone. If you look closely, you will notice that the distance between the name of the smoothie and the top line is not the same as the distance from the ingredients to the rainbow line - this choice, even though at first it might seem like it, was in fact a thought-out decision. Lowering the placement of the ingredients would make the distance between the text and the icon greater which would create more white space that I did not need. The bottom line is rainbow and, in most of my smoothies, the ingredient lists are wide. Placing them closer to each other would make the design look overcrowded at the bottom and empty at the top.

3. Colours and icons

I used 7 colours of the rainbow to symbolise each flavour. Each icon is in the same colour as the frame and one of the colours at the bottom of the label (for specific colour numbers, see The Greenery Visual Identity Manual). This, in my opinion, is a smart marketing move for two reasons.

1. Teenagers and LGBT Community. Pride Flag is in the colours of the rainbow and because of that, rainbows have become strongly associated with LGBT people. Today's generation of teenagers are very strongly opinionated, fight against inequality, homophobia, sexism and racism. A vast majority of teenagers, even the ones who aren't affected by mistreatment from the rest of society, would be happy to buy a drink with a pride flag on it. Another trend I have noticed amongst people born after the year 2000 is collecting drink cans - potentially, some people would want to have a collection of all The Greenery rainbow drink bottles and it could boost the sales.

2. Strong branding. One of the basic principles of my brand is inclusion. There are plenty of people who have hidden disabilities. Those people might struggle with concentration, differentiating colours or reading. Instead of just writing the name of the drink on the label or using fruit pictures, I used a colour code as well as icons that represent the names of the drinks. This way, if a client doesn't remember the name of the smoothie, they can easily describe it by explaining either the colour of the label, the icon that was on it or the taste of it. Most brands don't have all of these features which makes it harder to recognise the specific drinks. For example, they have 3 types of red smoothies in their offer, all of which have. raspberries in them. A customer will have a hard time trying to pick the right drink that they liked previously and end up buying a product from a different brand. A great example of this are Tropicana and Innocent Juice.

Tropicana's labels always feature a photograph of a fruit. I think that it's a very outdated approach to the design and it isn't appealing to the young people. They don't have specific drink names on the bottles. The most visible elements are their logo and the fruit that was used to produce the juice. They are not original in any way, they don't stand out and it's hard to differentiate one flavour from the other.

Innocent Juice do use a strong colour code, however all of their bottles look so similar that it's very easy to mistake them if a customer misreads the label. The flavours are also quite similar and the only difference is the type of drink a customer is buying. It's overall very confusing and not intuitive at all especially for people who, as I mentioned, might have disabilities of some sort or are in a hurry.

My labels came out very good and are strong design pieces that look good and are functional and practical at the same time. I didn't end up putting nutritional information on them because I didn't think it was necessary - all nutritional information can be found in The Greenery's mobile app or at The Greenery shops. Since it is a brand that produces fresh smoothies blended in front of the client at a shop (similar system to cafes such as Starbucks or Costa) and our products cannot be purchased directly from grocery stores, The Greenery shops can be treated as takeaway restaurants in which case it is not essential to put the nutritional information on the label.

[theliterateape]

I Can't Drive 55 | Lessons Learned in the 55th Year

By Don Hall

In my thirty-second year I felt incredibly sorry for myself. I was getting my first divorce, was living in a one-room studio in Uptown, my theater company was imploding over ego-driven bullshit. I drank myself into a state of suicidal yearning. It was a rough year. 

I called my mom. Mom is that voice of reason in good and bad times.

"This has been a really shitty year. Maybe I should move back to Kansas."

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-two."

"And in thirty-two years you've lived on the planet, how many of those years were bad?"

I thought about it for a moment. "Really bad? Two. No three. Three years. Why?"

"Well, three out of thirty-two is a pretty solid track record. Seems to me that you weathered those other bad years and had good years to spare. Maybe you decide to quit wallowing in how bad this year has been and get to work on next year because based on your experience you probably have another cluster of good years in store."

Some have the Dali Lama. Others have a priest or a shelf of self-help books. I have my mom.

My fifty-fifth year (or the specter of 2020) was a rough year for so many people in the world it's almost a joke. The whole year has been covered in shit—from the campaign to unseat the least capable and most destructive president in my lifetime to three months in a pandemic shutting down the planet and economic hardship most of us have only read about in Steinbeck novels—2020 looks like the toilet bowl moments after a morning constitutional from a night of White Castle and rum.

Sure, the act of comparing one's life with those around is a narcissistic self-loathing experiment best suited for recently jilted lesbians and Instagram junkies, but while the entire world has been burning down in both literal and figurative ways, fifty-five has been a damn good year for me.

In January, I was well into my year and a half managing a casino on the corner of I-15 and Tropicana. I had done my due diligence in training and had hit the sweet spot of knowing enough about the business to be an effective leader on the floor. I knew my high rollers and had figured out the best approach to dealing with the meth-addicts and prostitutes. I could fix 90 percent of the machines and could process a jackpot inside of four minutes consistently.

Then came the pandemic and the economic shutdown of Las Vegas in March. Most were laid off and in free fall but I had stumbled into working for one of two gambling corporations in Nevada that committed to keeping the payroll rolling despite losing millions per day.

The three months of closure saw me coming in to work every day, cleaning the bar and the machines, and hanging out to make sure no one ransacked the place while it was closed. I did a lot of writing in my office during that time. 

In terms of personal tragedy, my nineteen year old nephew overdosed in a parking lot in April and, virus be damned, Dana and I flew out the next day to help my sister.

We re-opened the casino in June. 

Seven months of balancing life in a pandemic with idiots motivated to gamble, arguing with people about the necessity to wear masks, and submitting essays to everyone. Getting paid to write (even in small increments) was a genuine drug.

Over the summer both Dana and I were asked to write for an anthology of essays. Las Vegas writers writing about Las Vegas. It was a boost, man. Don't get me wrong, the casino gig was solid and, for the most part, enjoyable. Getting paid to write words and sentences was fucking delicious.

The book came out in October launched with a Zoomesque gathering.

The casino gig, while solid and simple, was becoming dull. Rote. Combining the fact that my best (and meager) talents were not usable during a pandemic in a struggling casino, I told my General Manager that I needed more money for such routine grind and that I’d start looking aggressively for something more in tune with my skills that also paid a bit more on my year-and-a-half mark.

Six days after I started the search, I was hired by a Denver-based firm as a Senior Copywriter.

Turns out I’m pretty good at it. Getting a salary for writing words and sentences is sweet and working from home as the pandemic continues to rage on is smart and comfortable. No longer a slave to the swings shift, my schedule is my own.

I can, for the first time in my life when asked what I do for a living, answer “I am a writer.” In a career path marked by ten year gigs followed by "gotta pay the bills" gigs, it looks like Casino Manager is the latter and "Writer" is the former. Now it’s time to write some books, yeah?

It’s been a year, my friends.

Here are the lessons that landed in my 55th annum.

Always Leave ‘Em Wanting More

Over the course of my bizarre career as a “Writer. Teacher. Storyteller. Consultant.” to refer to my donhall.vegas website, I’ve had a tendency to overstay my welcome.

Instead of leaving circumstances on good terms, by the time I was ready to go, I was all Fuck these people! What a bunch of dickseeds! and at least a few of the people were Fuck him! What a dickseed!

I stayed one year longer than I should have as a public school teacher. I stayed at least a year too long in my second marriage and, despite some incredible shows toward the end of the WNEP Theater years, I stayed too long with that company. I should’ve left WBEZ at least a year earlier and I waited until things got weird in the storytelling scene before leaving Chicago.

With the casino, I left long before things become too rote or sour. I found the new gig, jumped on it, and was told if it didn’t work out, I always had a place to land. That I was a part of the Station Casinos “family.” My staff bought me booze and when I swung by just to see them, they are happy to be seen.

Hell, the GM even gave me one of the chairs from the Craps Table for my home office!

As I get older, recognizing the signs that perhaps it’s time to go is an essential skill. At fifty-five, maybe I’m finally into that.

Family is Always More Important Than Work

Last year, working the first 24/7/365 job in my life, I was told I had to work on Christmas. It was the first Christmas in decades I hadn’t spent with my family in Kansas. It wasn’t bad—Joe flew in from Chicago, he took Dana and I to see Penn Gillette at Rio, Kelli joined Dana and Joe on the casino floor while I worked.

This year, especially after the death of my nephew, it became obvious that family had to come first. Months before I landed the writing gig, I let my GM know I was taking the week of Christmas off, COVID be damned. I was clear that if the company couldn’t pay me for the time off I understood and if I was to be let go because of it, then that was fine, too.

The casino was incredibly cool about the request that wasn’t really a request. In fact, even though I gave my two week’s notice before the Christmas vacation pay would kick in, my GM allowed me to be paid for it anyway (see that first lesson again).

It was in every possible way the correct call. My sister needed me. I needed my mom and dad. We got to reconnect with a cousin I hadn’t seen in years. Turns out she’s a professional copywriter in Austin, TX. It was a soul-filling holiday and I’ll never miss Christmas in Kansas again.

It’s Pointless to Argue with Zealots

Maybe it’s in part due to my new-found desert surroundings or my distance from the increasingly Woke Chicago Arts scene but this last year of Trump and the ridiculous nature of angrier social media has pushed me closer to Left Center than Full-On Progressive.

As a younger man I decided that religion was simply not for me. Too emotionally charged without a sense of rationality. At the distance Nevada gives me I can see how irrational both the Extreme Right—the overtly white nationalist taint with the individualism bordering on sociopathy—and the Progressive Left—the quasi-religious circular logic of white privilege, erasure of women as a category, and focus on tribalism over all—have become. Or maybe they were always this way and it took some time away from a major urban center to see it.

Whichever the case, arguing with either side has become synonymous with filing my teeth with a dremel. Besides being as productive as screaming into an Amazon Box, taping it up, and shipping it to Congress, it’s fucking annoying.

If there is a resolution I’m attempting to adopt in the latter half of my fifties, it is this: find common ground with everyone and if I encounter someone so far into conspiracy territory that I cannot, walk away and don’t look back.

Social Media Enables the Very Worst in Us (and Me)

I can’t remember if I shed myself of Faceborg, Twitter, Instagram, and the host of social media this or last year but I’ve spent most (if not all) of my fifty-fifth year absent the noise and it was an excellent decision.

Mobs of imbeciles canceling professors, trolling J.K. Rowling, threatening violence to strangers, and organizing a breach of the Capitol all using tools for communication that should be extraordinary made me hate people I had never met. This cannot be a good ‘chicken soup for the soul’ arena to spend time in.

I’ll admit that I do feel left out of the mix some yet I’m happier for it. I jumped back recently with a new LinkedIn account (which is sortof  like social media but with jobs) and the only good thing about that has been being able to message with Rob Kozlowski.

I’m a Social Distancing Jedi

Five years ago, Dana threw me a birthday party and there was a room full of friends in attendance. This year, I’ll be lucky if even Dana remembers my birthday.

The culling effect of both getting rid of social media and the pandemic has been like a hoarder finally ridding himself of boxes of empty Altoid tins and those square plastic bread ties. Always a bit of a misanthrope, this year has cleared out so much noise and my new gig at home has me isolated from the wash of the unwashed.

Turns out I’m good with this. My interactions with people are more intentional rather than surface level and while life has made me more cautious when it comes to whom I genuinely trust, those whom I do choose teach me things I wouldn’t know and enrich my dwindling time on the planet.

Your Reality is Dictated by Your Optimism

Optimism isn’t merely hope. It isn’t happiness or a cheery disposition.

Optimism is an act of resilience against the brutal harshness of living the existential crisis.

It’s darkest just before the dawn implies that there will be a dawn. What if there won’t be? What if it’s just more darkness? If the implacable timpani of human greed, a self correcting planetary environment, and the algorithm that defines our modern interaction has no end, should that result in giving in to the despair?

As optimism is a breeze when things are going your way, despair is the path of least resistance when things turn to shit. Seeing through the mist at a better future takes effort and commitment like a solid marriage or a massive novel you’ve committed to writing. It’s a project to be managed not a feeling to languish within.

One cannot truly call himself an optimist who refuses to see the horror. Pretending that people are essentially kind and generous is stuffing the ostrich head in the sand. People are apes with higher brain functions and follow the rules of the jungle. Tribalism, essentialism, war for resources, the history of brutality of all humanity goes far beyond Hannah Jones 1619 Project. Taken in whole, we aren’t a very enlightened and forgiving species.

Further, optimism is an individual choice. It’s not something that can be enforced but it is something that can be inspired. The American Experiment, despite its many missteps and flaws, is grounded in a belief that humans can govern themselves justly and effectively. Given the larger picture, belief in democracy is only slightly more delusional than the guy playing slots so he can pay his rent. The odds are astronomically against success and yet the choice to persevere is made.

When you see someone who has one of those death camp tattoos on their arm you are witnessing a genuine, tried and true, bona fide optimist.

Optimism is hardest when things turn to shit but it is then when it is most necessary.

Becoming Antique is a Journey

For the first time I see that more of my life has been lived than I have left to live.

I recognize that I wish I could give the years I have left to my nephew because I have done a lot in my five and a half decades and he didn't get the chance. I wonder, absent the obsessive drive to achieve I had in my younger days, what I have to offer in the next ten years? What value does my existence provide to others and how do I manifest that value in pragmatic terms?

Like an old car or a pair of worn-out shoes, we all must acknowledge a certain sense of obsolescence. The pandemic has up-ended so many of the fictions we lived with up until this point and finding North on the compass is a challenge these days. Becoming irrelevant is like that boiling frog—slowly and without even recognizing the boil—we all find ourselves as vintage. 

Perhaps that's what I've become. Not the rusted Coca Cola sign in the corner but the "like new" vinyl Def Leppard album with slightly tattered and stained liner notes.

In my next ten years (if I have that much time in store or more) I'd like to read more. Write a lot more. Listen to more live music. Be a better husband. Become that cool old man on the block with good advise and a snort of rye in case it's a little chilly. Christ, I already smoke a pipe.

There is so much more to learn that, in order to avoid feeling useless, I need to learn more.

In a Pandemic, Look For the Simple Things to Keep You Sane

A really well-made sandwich

A cold beer in 115˚ weather

A road trip with your Soul Mate

A book by a new author

A slideshow of you and your Soul Mate doing things together

A long walk

Recognizing that you have a Soul Mate

Sometimes I wonder if there’s anything else. I wonder if I’d miss anything important if I simply ceased to breathe on the couch I bought back in Chicago as it sits in Nevada.

In those moments of melodramatic existentialism, I remind myself that the experience of living is this annual letter to you. A summation of the things I’ve learned and the life I’ve lived.

If I had finished this race last year, my mettle wouldn’t have been tested by a pandemic. I wouldn't have found my sister again. I wouldn’t have seen Trump slink away to Florida. I wouldn’t be sitting in a Craps Chair in a home office of my design. 

I wouldn’t have learned anything at all (you know, because dead people stop moving forward).

Here’s to another year and what adventures I will have!

[disappearingground]

Jenny Lewis Escapes the Void

Pitchfork March 21, 2019

After a turbulent childhood and two decades of brilliantly vulnerable songs, the L.A. idol has finally arrived at something like happiness.

By Jenn Pelly

Jenny Lewis and I are in her brown Volvo, idling outside her childhood home. On a Tuesday afternoon in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, we are two blocks from Van Nuys Middle School, where Lewis once sang “Killing Me Softly” in a talent show and got suspended for flashing a peace sign in a class photo (it was mistaken for a gang symbol). We are walking distance from what used to be a Sam Goody record store on Van Nuys Boulevard, where Lewis once bought a life-changing tape of De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising, stoking her obsession with magnetic wordplay, as well as her first Bright Eyes CD, Fevers and Mirrors, which she quickly shared with the three men in her burgeoning indie band, Rilo Kiley, in the early 2000s.

We are not far from the bar where Lewis’ older sister, Leslie, sings in a cover band every Saturday, following in the tradition of their parents, who sang covers in a Las Vegas lounge act called Love’s Way in the 1970s. And that strip-mall pub is just across from the movie theater where Lewis and her mother once conspired to steal a cardboard cutout of Lewis’ 13-year-old self—a souvenir from when, as one of the busiest child actors of her generation, she starred alongside Fred Savage in the 1989 video game flick The Wizard.

Lewis left the Valley alone when she was 16 and vowed to never go back. “That was my number one goal: just to get out,” she tells me now, at 43. But on the occasion of her fourth solo record, On the Line, I asked for a tour of her past life, and here we are—Lewis in a royal blue jumpsuit, with electric blue sneakers and eyeliner to match; me, staring up at the rainbow of buttons fastened to the sun visor of her passenger seat, a collage that includes Bob Dylan, a peace sign, and a hot-orange sad face.

From the driver’s seat, behind her oversized shades, Lewis mentions the Bob Marley blacklight poster that once hung in her Van Nuys bedroom, and I imagine the scores of teenage bedroom walls that have made space for her own iconic image through the years. Lewis’ catalog of cleverly morbid, storytelling songs with Rilo Kiley and the Watson Twins ushered a generation of young listeners through suburban ennui and personal becoming—like a wise older sister we could visit on our iPods, offering an example of how to do something smart and cool with your sadness and your solitude.

In the mid-2000s, Lewis was like an indie rock Joni Mitchell for the soul-bearing Livejournal era, or an emo Dylan, the poet laureate of AIM away messages. Words—some cryptic, some elegant, some brutally, achingly direct—burst from the edges of her diaristic songs, with a dash of Didion-esque deadpan for good measure. It’s no surprise that Lewis’ earliest bedroom recordings were just Casio beats and what she describes as “raps.” Lewis was the first feminine voice I ever encountered leading a band outside the mainstream, with a sound that initially befuddled my ears because it was, in that overwhelmingly male indie era, so rare: a woman’s plainspoken voice.

Cruising around L.A. together, my mind maps the California of her lyrics. What does it mean for the palm trees to “bow their heads”? What becomes of the cheating, California-bound man in Rilo Kiley’s filmic “Does He Love You”—the soulful rave-up where Lewis belted the heroic mantra, “I am flawed if I’m not free!”? But my most pressing question, the one I must ask Lewis: Is California still “a recipe for a black hole,” as she sang on 2001’s “Pictures of Success”? “I guess it’s all the void,” she tells me straight. “It’s not really geographical. That’s what you find out on your adventures. It doesn’t really matter where you go. You accompany yourself there.”

The main destination of our Van Nuys excursion is the small ranch home of Lewis’ youth—or rather, homes, as there are two, practically adjacent. It’s a little complicated, I learn, as are many things with Lewis’ upbringing.

Lewis was born in Vegas on Elvis Presley’s birthday. In 1976, her parents and sister were living out of suitcases on the road, playing Carpenters and Sonny and Cher songs at casinos like the Sands, the Mint, and the Tropicana. “My mom was so pregnant but she would not miss a show,” recalls Leslie, who was 8 at the time. “Jenny would be kicking her on stage, and I remember seeing my mom flinch. I think that was Jenny saying, ‘Let me out, I want to sing!’”

Soon after Lewis was born, her parents divorced, and her father, Eddie Gordon, left the family and continued his career as one of the world’s leading harmonica virtuosos. Lewis’ mother, Linda, moved back to her native Los Angeles, working three jobs to rebuild a life with her daughters. At 2-and-a-half years old, Lewis was discovered by the powerful Hollywood agent Iris Burton (a young Drew Barrymore and the Olsen Twins were among her clients) after the toddler spontaneously wandered over to her table in a restaurant.

When Lewis was 5, she was already supporting Leslie and their mom with her commercial and TV acting, and they bought their humble first home, the one we’re visiting. “But we always used to dream about the house on the corner,” Lewis says, slowly circling the block, “so then my mom bought that house, too.” It’s two doors down, looks pretty similar—why dream of it? “Because it was right there,” Lewis says, “and it was nicer than the one we had!” (A 1992 L.A. Times headline dubbed Lewis “A Teen-Age Actress With 3 Mortgages”—she owned a townhouse in North Hollywood by then as well—calling her “the youngest member of the United Homeowners Association.”) “I know it’s confusing,” Lewis says. “This is part of the simulation; this is craziness. Why did we also want that house?” She erupts into a cackle. “None of this makes any fucking sense.”

In life as in her songs, Lewis is a consummate storyteller, mindful of how tiny details make a great tale. In the car, for instance, she tells me about the time she played Lucille Ball’s granddaughter on the notoriously bad 1986 sitcom “Life With Lucy.” It was the last show Lucy ever starred in, and it was canceled before the first season even finished. The mood was blue, but a wrap party was still planned, and Lewis’ mother convinced Lucy to have the gathering at their little house in Van Nuys. “So Lucy rolled up with her two dogs,” Lewis remembers. “She walked in the front door, looked around, and said, ‘What a dump!’”

Lewis’ mother typically attracted fascinating characters to the house—like the producers of the TV special “Circus of the Stars,” who trained Lewis in trapeze; or “Fantasy Island” star Hervé Villechaize, who came over for a scammy “Pyramid Party”; or The Exorcist writer William Peter Blatty. One year on Halloween, at the recommendation of the family’s illusionist friend—who, according to Leslie, levitated Jenny in their house—her mother invited over Ghostbusters star Dan Aykroyd’s brother Peter, who was himself a real-life ghost buster. Peter planned to “check out the levels” of the house.

Intrigued by the Lewis’ paranormal investigation, the local news showed up. Back then, Lewis was hanging out with fellow child actors Sarah Gilbert, Toby Maguire, and Leonardo DiCaprio—who also came through to scope things out. Recalling the ghost-busting scene, Lewis says, “They came over and set up their vague, infrared equipment and they captured some sort of reading coming down the hallway and going into my childhood bedroom.”

I ask Lewis if the ghostbusters’ findings felt accurate. “Well, totally,” she says. “Something was going on. We always had weird vibes in the house. Very dark vibes.”

In person, Lewis’ temperament is one of constant cheer. She radiates positivity, takes bong rips in her kitchen, says “dope” and “vibe” often. This sunny disposition is occasionally punctuated by looks of deep, welling concern for others—as if she is on the brink of tears for humanity. Still, she calls herself a “total skeptic,” and tells me that show business trained her, early on, to master the art of getting along. “I didn’t ever wanna be one of the dicks on set—like in a family situation, where one person can really fuck up Thanksgiving,” she says, before veering into more existential territory. “We all know we’re careening towards the end of humanity. I just wanna do my work and hang out with my people.”

It’s only later, while sipping Modelos at the dining room table of her quaint ranch house in the hills of Studio City, that Lewis reveals the source of her childhood home’s “dark vibes” was her mother’s lifelong heroin addiction. “It is painful to go back there,” Lewis tells me. “I get a weird feeling. I don’t know if the ghostbusters could have detected it, but there was some kind of energy that was not conducive to survival. So when I left, I left.”

“My mom was an addict my entire life, and it was a fucking rollercoaster,” she continues. “It lent itself to some amazing situations, but it was manic as fuck, and there were drugs constantly. It’s a lifestyle, and it’s a community to grow up around. I feel grateful for having been witness to some pretty outrageous human behavior from a young age. Nothing really shocks me.”

Leslie attests to their complicated home environment, and recalls “stepping over people trying to find my books to go to school.” She became a mother figure to Jenny, taking her little sister to school on her bicycle and making sure she did her homework. Leslie was just a teenager when she put it together that their mother was pushing Jenny’s acting money into buying drugs and, ultimately, selling them. “It was a terrible realization for both Jenny and I to have,” Leslie says. “I give our mom a lot of credit for being resourceful prior to that. We probably wouldn’t be talking to you today if she hadn’t been so inventive and so diligent. But it escalated.”

When Jenny quit acting in her early 20s, Leslie wasn’t surprised. “I remember her finally having the burden lifted off her shoulders, that she didn’t need to support our mom anymore, and she didn’t need to be told what to do anymore—she was free,” Leslie says. “Her agents were calling me, asking ‘What the hell’s going on? We’re booking her in all this stuff.’ It was a big deal for her to walk away. But she had to do it. I think she didn’t want to be saying other people’s words anymore.” Leslie recalls the bubbly dialogue Lewis would have to recite on screen and adds, “That’s just not where she was at in her life.”

Focusing on her own words, Lewis arrived instead at death, disease, loneliness, deflated dreams. Rilo Kiley’s 2002 breakthrough The Execution of All Things opens with a hushed monologue from Lewis about the melting ground. On the title track, she sings genially of a will to “murder what matters to you most and move on to your neighbors and kids.” Disguised by twee album art, Rilo Kiley created an indie rock uncanny valley, a sweet-sung pop moroseness of Morrissey-like proportions.

The centerpiece of Execution is a gritted-teeth fight song called “A Better Son/Daughter.” It bursts from a music-box twinkle to a monumental marching-band wallop, from a depressed paralysis to refurbished self-worth, from “your mother […] calling you insane and high, swearing it’s different this time” to “not giving in to the cries and wails of the Valley below.” In the past, Lewis has rarely discussed how her own biography fits into her songs, but the sense of hard-earned triumph and conviction powering this particular song is unequivocal. When I ask what might have inspired its climax—“But the lows are so extreme/That the good seems fucking cheap”—she simply remarks, “I mean everything I say.”

In 2006, Lewis wrote the fablistic title ballad of her solo masterpiece, Rabbit Fur Coat, to convey the feeling of her story—a mother waitressing on welfare in the Valley, the promise of a working child, a fortune that fades—if not the concrete details, which, she says, don’t really matter. But the haunting “Rabbit Fur Coat” laid her mythology bare. “I became a hundred-thousand-dollar kid/When I was old enough to realize/Wiped the dust from my mother’s eyes,” Lewis sings, the last line quivering into a moment of piercing a capella. “Is all this for that rabbit fur coat?”

I ask Lewis where she thinks her optimism comes from, and she just says “survival.” This summarizes an equation of emotional resilience that more women than not are tasked with solving young. “Jenny has basically been on her own her entire life,” says her best friend, the musician Morgan Nagler. “She’s the definition of buoyant.”

It’s hard to imagine rock in 2019 without Lewis’ radical honesty, without her hyper-lyrical mix of the sweet and the sinister. “In the early 2000s, the really big indie artists were Bright Eyes and Death Cab for Cutie, and Jenny was one of the only women fronting that kind of music,” says Katie Crutchfield, aka Waxahatchee. “But in the next generation after that in indie music, there are so many women. How could she not have been a huge part of that?”

Crutchfield, now an indie figurehead in her own right, says no songwriter has directly influenced her more than Lewis. When she was still a 20-year-old punk living in Alabama, Crutchfield got the cover of The Execution of All Things tattooed prominently on her arm. Lewis’ odd, poppy, poetic songs had a musicality she hadn’t found in punk, but they still spoke to her as an outcast.

Seeing Rilo Kiley play for the first time—at a Birmingham venue she would go on to play herself—was a watershed moment. Crutchfield and her two sisters stood front row center, sang every word, and cried. “It was so huge to see a woman on stage holding a guitar, being powerful but still very feminine,” Crutchfield says. “That was my first foray into seeing that as a possibility for myself.” She recalls the exact outfit Lewis wore that night: red leather skirt, knee socks, T-shirt tucked in, and “a belt that was like a ruler—something you would see on a teacher.”

When Eva Hendricks, singer of sugarrushing New York pop-rock band Charly Bliss, was still in high school, she would spend days writing Lewis’ lyrics in her notebooks over and over, becoming attuned to the virtues of unsparing openness in songwriting. “Listening to that music unlocked something I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to understand about myself,” says Hendricks, who also appreciated how Lewis never downplayed her femininity. She distinctly recalls going to a Lewis record signing around 2014’s The Voyager: “I waited in line and when it got to be my turn, the only thing I could think to say was, ‘I can’t believe that your voice is coming out of a real human being.’”

Harmony Tividad, of Girlpool, was 12 the first time she heard Rilo Kiley, and calls Execution’s “The Good That Won’t Come Out” one of her favorite songs of all time. “That song is more like a diary entry, and vulnerable in this way that feels like a secret,” Tividad says. The unvarnished album opener peaks with Lewis speak-singing, “You say I choose sadness, that it never once has chosen me/Maybe you’re right.”

“I was a really emotional, awkward young person and felt kind of socially trapped,” Tividad, now 23, reflects. “I was a freak. And that song is about exploring all of this stuff inside of yourself that you can’t really show people. It’s about isolation, which I have felt a lot. This music was a soundtrack to that recalibration of personhood. It was very integral in me developing a sense of self.”

Lewis has resided in the quiet show-biz neighborhood of Studio City—which she refers to as “Stud City”—for 11 years. She mentions that her current home is still, technically, located in the Valley, and shoots me a conspiratorial look: “Don’t tell anyone.” There are retro-looking landlines all around the house (cell service is poor), and eye-catching vintage Christmas bulbs strung in the kitchen window. The house was previously owned by the late Disney animator Art Stevens, who worked on Fantasia and Peter Pan. Standing amid dozens of plants in the little green room at the heart of her home, sipping a coconut La Croix, Lewis enthuses about Mort Garson’s obscure 1976 electronic record, called Mother Earth’s Plantasia. The whole place has an air of magic.

Its infrastructure has been unchanged for decades, which stuck out to a location scout for Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming Charles Manson film, who knocked on the door one day and asked to take some photos. He did not return, but his business card is on Lewis’ refrigerator, alongside one from legendary songwriter Van Dyke Parks, and a Bob Dylan backstage pass. The fridge is mostly covered with hospital stickers from when Lewis was visiting her mom, who died of cancer in 2017, and inspired her new song “Little White Dove.”

The other big change in Lewis’ life was the dissolution of her 12-year relationship with singer-songwriter Jonathan Rice—after which, to shake up the energy of the house, Lewis’ friend and photographer Autumn de Wilde painted the walls of her bedroom a striking shade of rose. Directly outside the door is a life-size photo of her best friend Morgan, and the window of her bedroom, spanning the right wall, looks out to a built-in pool. The sill holds carefully arranged objects: ruby slippers, her passport, a candle, a plethora of sunglasses, and a violet notebook labeled “Lewis homework for On the Line.”

Talking with Lewis, the despairing elephant in the room is Ryan Adams, who played on the album. Two weeks before we meet, Adams was accused of sexual misconduct and emotional manipulation from musician Phoebe Bridgers, his ex-wife Mandy Moore, and others, including a woman who was allegedly 14 at the time, prompting a criminal investigation by the FBI. “The allegations are so serious and shocking and really fucked up, and I was so sad on so many levels when I heard,” Lewis tells me. “I hate that he’s on this album, but you can’t rewrite how things went. We started the record together two years ago, and he worked on it—we were in the studio for five days. Then he pretty much bounced, and I had to finish the album by myself.”

“This is part of my lifelong catalog,” Lewis continues. “The album is an extension of that thing that started back at my mom’s house—I had to save myself and my music, and get away from the toxicity. Ultimately, it’s me and my songs. I began in my bedroom with a tape recorder, and it was like my own fantasy world. I’ve taken all these weird turns in my life—with mostly men, sometimes women—but I feel like I’m finally back to that place, which is autonomy.”

Though On the Line features an impressive array of players—Beck, Rolling Stones producer Don Was, Dylan drummer Jim Keltner, literally Ringo Starr—the album marks the first time Lewis has penned an album of songs solo, without co-writers, since Rabbit Fur Coat. “I’m not fully myself when I’m co-writing,” Lewis admits, describing a directness to the songs she’s penned with men, like Rilo Kiley’s “Portions for Foxes,” as opposed to songs she’s written alone, like “Silver Lining.” “With the songs I’ve co-written, it’s almost as if there’s a trimming of the emotional, rambling, poetic hysteria, which is where I live when I’m writing by myself,” Lewis says. “I don’t think of songs structurally. It’s a feeling, and I’m chasing the feeling.”

The cover of On the Line is a close-up of Lewis’ chest in an ornate blue gown. She chose the snapshot intuitively, from a pile of Polaroids taken by de Wilde, and only later recognized it as a deep homage to her mom, who once dressed similarly in Vegas and had an identical mole between her breasts. “Over the years I’ve become more comfortable in my skin,” Lewis says. “It’s funny to feel good in your skin when it’s not quite as tight as it used to be.”

With her voice sounding more refined than ever, On the Line finds Lewis singing about getting head in a black Corvette, feeling “wicked,” and—on the devastatingly delicate “Taffy”—sending nudes to a lover she knows will leave. “There’s a lot of fantasy in my songs,” Lewis tells me. “Sadly, I don’t get that much action. I should have gotten more.” She says she has always written about sex as “character projection,” but when she did so on Rilo Kiley’s final album, 2007’s Under the Black Light, it polarized fans. Lewis recalls one journalist who made a flow chart claiming to correlate the declining quality of the band’s music and the shrinking size of her hot pants. “It was so puritanical,” she says. But as the borders between the underground, mainstream, and genre have broken down, the artists who Lewis inspired are continuing to make space for more expansive expressions of sexuality.

The new record’s sound is warm and sleek, and when Lewis says she listened primarily to Kanye’s recent work while mixing it, I recall yet another wacky tale she shared with me at her house: Once, circa 2008, Lewis chanced upon Kanye at an airport. He played her a cut from 808s and Heartbreaks, and she played him her sprawling psych-rock triptych “The Next Messiah.”

Listening to On the Line, I find myself fixated on “Wasted Youth,” which uses a jaunty piano arrangement to deliver its neatly bleak refrain: “I wasted my youth on a poppy.” Lewis then slyly draws a line from the drugs to our numbing daily realities. When she sings, “Everybody knows we’re in trouble/Doo doo doo doo doo/Candy Crush,” I can feel my phone festering in my palm.

“I feel like that song is more about Candy Crush than heroin, if that’s even fucking possible,” Lewis says. “That’s the fuckin’ end: Candy Crush. It’s terrifying. I feel like my brain has been taken over by one of those weird fungi that grow out of the head of an ant in the rainforest. It’s like we’re spracked out on our Instagrams. It makes me feel like shit even talking about it.”

By the bridge, however, Lewis offers a blunt jolt of hope: “We’re all here, then we’re gone/Do something while your heart is thumping!” That’s a surprisingly heartening sentiment from a songwriter who has referred to herself as “a walking corpse,” who once made a springy emo anthem entitled “Jenny, You’re Barely Alive.”

“I’m in my 40s and something has shifted,” she says, when I ask what she does these days to help herself through. “Maybe you’re more aware of your own mortality, and have the balls to walk away from things, and be untethered, and do the reflection and the hard work—getting your ass out of bed and walking a couple miles, going to the gym, talking to a therapist.”

Lewis says her relationships with her female friends have deepened profoundly in recent years. “Maybe this is what we’re picking up on: the collective consciousness,” she says. “Women are talking to one another more. Reaching out to my girlfriends has helped me through these lessons that keep coming up. It’s the same lesson, where I’m like, ‘How am I in this situation with this fucking person that’s crazy… again? Why am I here and why have I stayed this long?’ And then my girlfriends are there to go: ‘Get the fuck out of there!’” (She is clear that this is not about her relationship with Rice, but rather about other romantic and working partnerships.)

I tell Lewis that these get-me-out predicaments remind me of her own song, “Godspeed,” from 2008’s Acid Tongue, which I had been revisiting quite a bit lately—a golden-hour piano ballad from one woman to another, a paean to “keep the lighthouse in sight,” to get “up and out of his house,” because “no man should treat you like he do.” “I wrote that for my friend,” Lewis says. “But maybe I wrote it for myself now.”

By the end of my time at Lewis’ house, the sun has set and we’re sitting in near total darkness, save for the neon pink glow of one of her many landlines. “You have to make a choice to be happy, or try to be,” Lewis insists. “Sometimes that involves moving away from people that you love, or that hurt you, or that are toxic. You have to find your bliss in life, right?”

I almost can’t believe that the same woman who provided me with my personal millennial-burnout anthems is asking me about unfettered joy—the artist who wrote the lyrics “I do this thing where I think I’m real sick, but I won’t go to the doctor to find out about it” and “I’m a modern girl but I fold in half so easily when I put myself in the picture of success” and “It must be nice to finish when you’re dead.” But I nod; it’s true.

[junker-town]

1 nice sentence about all 39 bowl games

You might have to squint, but there’s something to like in every game.

My parents subscribed to the “if you don’t have a nice thing to say, then don’t say anything at all” theory. So while 2018’s bowl slate isn’t all that exciting I decided to find some fun in this not-awesome postseason slate. Here is one nice thing about every bowl matchup.

New Mexico: North Texas vs. Utah State

With Graham Harrell coordinating the offense and Mason Fine at QB, the Mean Green should put up plenty of points.

Cure Bowl: Tulane vs. UL Lafayette

If you want a non-Playoff bowl where the teams involved definitely care, the second all-Louisiana bowl in NCAA history should have at least a bit of animus.

Las Vegas: Fresno State vs. Arizona State

We’re guaranteed to get a good pre-bowl presser quote from Herm Edwards, and you shoulda watched this Fresno team this season so just cheat and watch this game.

Camellia: Georgia Southern vs. EMU

Georgia Southern plays option football again, and that’s always fun.

New Orleans: Middle Tennessee vs. Appalachian State

Blue Raiders QB Brent Stockstill (yup, the head coach’s son) actually is in the race to lead the nation in completion percentage among players that will play 12 or more games, and if you’re the kind of person who cares about completion percentage leaderboards, which you really should be, because they’re great, then this might be the game for you.

Cheribundi Tart Boca Raton: UAB vs. Northern Illinois

The Blazers are the best story in FBS this season.

Frisco: San Diego State vs. Ohio

Both teams are consistently good.

Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl: Marshall vs. USF

There’s a non-zero chance that, because the game has moved from Tropicana Field to Raymond James Stadium, you might see this thing ...

ESPN

... on the Buccaneers’ pirate ship:

Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images

Bahamas: FIU vs. Toledo

FIU running back Anthony Jones and offensive lineman Mershawn Miller were both shot in a drive-by in September, and both have returned to play in games this season, with Jones as a key contributor to the rushing attack.

Potato: Western Michigan vs. BYU

Cougars QB Zach Wilson took over for Tanner Mangum (who’s still at BYU, yeah) and has become a really fun dual threat.

Birmingham: Memphis vs. Wake Forest

Two words: Darrell Henderson.

Armed Forces: Houston vs. Army

We won’t be able to see what Ed Oliver could do to singlehandedly wreck the option, but that means we get to see the option working seamlessly.

Dollar General: Buffalo vs. Troy

Watch this with family and sound really smart when you point out Buffalo’s Lance Leipold and Troy’s Neal Brown are some of the must-know coaching names in the Group of 5.

Hawaii: Louisiana Tech vs. Hawaii

Speaking of coaches you should know, UH’s Nick Rolovich has a delightful Twitter account, which you can scroll during the game for added entertainment.

It's not? Dang it, better cancel those @Disneyland passes. https://t.co/NtJPZ8xNad

�� Nick Rolovich (@NickRolovich) September 6, 2017

First Responder: Boston College vs. Boise State

Boise State QB Brett Rypien’s gonna be an under-the-radar draft guy.

Quick Lane: Minnesota vs. Georgia Tech

With Paul Johnson retiring and Geoff Collins coming in, this may be the last time you’ll ever see Georgia Tech run the flexbone option, so treasure the opportunity while you have it.

Independence: Temple vs. Duke

Geoff Collins won’t be coaching him, but you better keep your eyes peeled for Temple safety Delvon Randall, who makes acrobatic picks ...

... and is generally good fun.

Cheez-It: Cal vs. TCU

Cal has the best defense in the country you might not know about.

Pinstripe: Miami vs. Wisconsin

It features a strong Wisconsin rushing attack against a strong Miami defense, and you can think of that instead of that these teams were in the Orange Bowl 12 months ago.

Texas: Baylor vs. Vanderbilt

Get yourself acquainted with Vandy running back Ke’Shawn Vaughn and his 7 yards per carry.

Music City: Purdue vs. Auburn

Jeff Brohm’s still coaching Purdue, and Gus Malzahn’s still coaching Auburn, and you can debate which of those is more surprising in its own way.

Camping World: West Virginia vs. Syracuse

Syracuse defensive end Alton Robinson is worth the price of admission and offers an incredible redemption story.

Alamo: Iowa State vs. Washington State

The Cyclones weathered the offensive assault of the Big 12 all season, and now they then get Mike Leach’s Wazzu.

Peach: Florida vs. Michigan

I lied earlier, because I can’t find anything nice to say about this game.

Belk: South Carolina vs. Virginia

If you like Jake Bentley’s game, you’ll like watching him go up against a UVA secondary that includes Juan Thornhill, a guy who has at least as many interception as all but six players.

Arizona: Arkansas State vs. Nevada

The Wolf Pack have played in five one-score games, and S&P+ projects a 1.5-point margin in this one.

Military: Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech

Luke Fickell has pulled off one of the best coaching jobs of this season for 10-2 UC.

Sun: Stanford vs. Pitt

Allow yourself to relive the greatest bowl game in college football history:

In the lowest-scoring major bowl game in a half-century, No. 24 Oregon State shut down No. 18 Pittsburgh 3-0 in the Brut Sun Bowl on Justin Kahut’s 44-yard field goal late in the first half.

The defensive struggle included 20 punts and nine sacks. Pitt kicker Connor Lee tried a 58-yard field goal in the closing minutes but the ball, helped by a steady wind, dropped just short of the crossbar.

Redbox: Michigan State vs. Oregon

Oregon QB Justin Herbert is going up against an elite defense.

Liberty: Missouri vs. Oklahoma State

The over/under is currently 74, only behind the Alabama-Oklahoma Orange Bowl (81).

Holiday: Northwestern vs. Utah

It’s at 7 p.m. ET on New Year’s Eve, so it won’t get too much in the way of your festivities.

Gator: NC State vs. Texas A&M

The Aggies have quietly been one of the most solid reams in the country this season, and if they win this game by a lot, they’ll be a prime candidate for a bowl bump in the 2019 preseason news cycle.

Outback: Mississippi State vs. Iowa

This will be Iowa’s sixth Outback Bowl berth since the 2003 season hahaha.

Citrus: Penn State vs. Kentucky

It’s your last chance to watch Trace McSorley play college football.

Fiesta: LSU vs. UCF

Remember, if UCF doesn’t win this game, it’s because LSU didn’t care.

Rose: Ohio State vs. Washington

It’s Urban Meyer’s last game, for now.

Sugar: Georgia vs. Texas

Sometimes bowl matchups are just excuses to geek out over two historic programs going at it.

Cotton: Clemson vs. Notre Dame

The Irish beat a cakewalk of a schedule that included five meh ACC teams, so the football gods gave ‘em the only good ACC team in a Playoff game.

Orange: Alabama vs. Oklahoma

The Tide have vowed revenge for Kyler Murray beating Tua Tagovailoa for the Heisman.

[swisscoin4-blog]

MLB Bullets made a mistake

Here’s my story on the infamous Billy Ripken obscene baseball card. I was in a card shop in Roseville, MN and they had one on display. I don’t remember how much they were asking for it, but I think it was somewhere in the $100 to $120 range. Maybe more, I really don’t remember. There was a sign next to the card that said something like “This is the only copy of this card that we have. The card is massively overpriced at the moment and we believe the card will go down in value in the future. We strongly recommend that you not purchase it at this time.”

A few minutes later, one of the clerks says to another clerk “I just sold that Ripken card. Should I take down the sign?”

“Just get another Ripken card from the back.”

“I thought that was the only copy of the card we had?”

“Nah. We’ve got a couple dozen in the back.”

Hey, they did warn them.

The Dodgers had their fan fest over the weekend and team president Stan Kasten defended the team not signing a major free agent, saying that there were lots of reasons to stay under the luxury tax threshold that fans wouldn’t understand. Craig Calcaterra has had enough of teams coming up with “banal and ridiculous” excuses to be cheap and argues that if teams want to win and fans to be interested, they need to spend money on players. He also goes after the Pirates for arguing that they can win despite the lowest payroll in the National League.

Calcaterra goes after a few teams, but I mentioned the Pirates specifically because Craig Edwards points out that they’ve had a very quiet winter. Edwards believes the team’s fan base will abandon them if they don’t give them some reason to come out to PNC Park. (Other than PNC Park)

The Indians and Twins are also defending not spending any money on players this winter.

Bill Baer finds the Indians and Twins reasons for not spending to be ridiculous, since they both play in the same weak division and a playoff spot is easily within the grasp of both teams.

Bob Nightengale writes that the Dodgers signing of free agent outfielder A.J. Pollock closes the door on the possibility that the team might sign outfielder Bryce Harper.

Buster Olney tries to make sense of the Dodgers offseason moves or lack thereof. (ESPN+ sub. req.)

The Padres are thinking of entering the Manny Machado sweepstakes and would like to set up a face-to-face meeting with the free agent infielder. Machado to San Diego makes a lot of sense, but it’s a long way from Machado’s home in Miami.

The White Sox would like to sign Machado or Harper, but their general manager Rick Hahn warned that they won’t sign both of them.

Astros owner Jim Crane thinks that teams won’t give out ten-year contracts anymore.

Buster Olney writes that whether or not the Cardinals sign first baseman Paul Goldschmidt to an extension could indicate whether there is going to be a labor war in the near future. (ESPN+ sub. req.) Olney’s argument is that if Goldschmidt signs a relatively team-friendly extension, that indicates that the players think free agency is currently broken and that Goldschmidt is trying to make as much money as he can before a work stoppage.

Royals second baseman Whit Merrifield is on the verge of signing a four-year extension. I wonder if that’s a sign.

Braves great Dale Murphy has four suggestions for the next collective bargaining agreement. (The Athletic sub. req.)

The Padres and the Dodgers are the leading candidates for a trade for Marlins catcher J.T. Realmuto.

Richard Justice has seven deals that would shake up MLB. Too bad none of them will happen.

Former Cubs reliever Justin Wilson signed a two-year, $10 million deal with the Mets.

Reliever Hunter Strickland signed a one-year deal with the Mariners.

New Yankees reliever Adam Ottavino tries to clarify his comments that he’d strike out Babe Ruth every time he faced him. Actually, Ottavino would walk Ruth every time he faced him because there isn’t enough left of Ruth for him to have a strike zone more than an inch or two off the ground.

On that matter, Walter Johnson was the hardest-throwing and most-feared pitcher of Ruth’s era. Johnson’s fastball probably averaged 88-mph and might have reached as high as 91-93 mph on occasion. Ottavino’s fastball averaged 94.3 last season and that’s down from previous seasons. I mean, maybe Ruth gets a weak grounder to short, but I don’t see what the controversy is.

Here’s Ottavino wearing a Yankees cap and getting an autograph from David Cone in 1996. Cone responded that he loved that sweater that he’s wearing in the photo.

Because of the political unrest in Venezuela, the Caribbean Series has been moved from that country. Where? They don’t know yet. The Series is supposed to start on Saturday.

Former Cubs outfielder Roosevelt Brown talks about what he learned from playing in Japan. He has a lot of positive things to say about Japanese baseball.

Sad news as former Giants owner Peter Magowan has died. Magowan led a group of investors that bought the team in 1992 and kept them from moving to St. Petersburg. (Really smart move there.) He ran the team until stepping aside in 2008.

Speaking of St. Pete, the Rays have decided to make Tropicana Field completely cashless and Chris Cwik doesn’t like it, arguing it makes things difficult for younger and poorer fans. What struck me here is that the Rays are arguing that it will cut down on the concession lines as the paperless transactions are faster. Is that really a big problem at Tropicana Field?

The Padres made it official. They will go back to a brown and gold color scheme in 2020.

The Rangers will retire Adrian Beltré’s number 29 this season.

Mike Mussina can’t decide between the Yankees and Orioles so his plaque in Cooperstown will have a blank cap. Probably the correct decision.

Bo Jackson was asked which sport Heisman Trophy-winner and Athletics first-round draft pick Kyler Murray should play. Jackson just said Murray should “go with his heart.” So football then. His brain would tell him baseball while it can still tell him anything.

Andrew Simon has some players with extreme platoon splits. Kyle Schwarber is on the list.

Giants third baseman Evan Longoria did a cooking challenge where he made dinner from ingredients suggested by fans.

And finally, Grant Brisbee has the story of the 1989 Fleer Billy Ripken card that had “F*** FACE” written on the handle of the bat. Bill Ripken does not want you to read this story.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.

Source: https://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/2019/1/28/18200195/mlb-bullets-free-agents-dodgers-pirates-manny-machado-padres-white-sox-billy-ripken-face

[theliterateape]

Uncertainty of Purpose in 2020 Las Vegas

by Don Hall

Gabrielle is a single mother in Las Vegas. She’s twenty-eight years old, has three children, and works as a cocktail waitress in my small Off-Strip casino. She’s bubbly and pretty so her tips usually make up for the dismal hourly wage (less than $10.00 an hour) but then the virus descended, the country tanked the collective response, and Nevada shut things down for a time.

Gabrielle has been clinging to the the fact that the corporation that owns the casino, while defiantly non-union, opted to pay its employees consistently throughout the 78 days of hard shutdown (sans tips, of course) but with the opening and subsequent bar shutdown, business has been limping forward.

Now the schools in Vegas are going to be online only. Her daycare person is no longer comfortable watching her kids because of the virus.

She used to be a nurse but like so many who come to Vegas, her prior experiences meant next to nothing. That’s something they don’t tell you when moving out here — your work experiences, education, and resume don’t mean much. You’re a tourist until you aren’t and stripping down and starting from scratch is the required path. The smaller industries in Vegas circle the wagons and block those who come in from bigger cities from access. It isn’t so much snobbery as a protective measure because most people aren’t looking to make a life here but to strike it rich and move on.

Gabrielle has been paying her dues for a few years. When the state slowly reopens casinos yet still has the bars closed, she makes her money but looks for ways to game the system. She takes a COVID test without symptoms because she knows that the results will take ten days and she can’t come into work until she brings in the paperwork. Thus two weeks of figuring out the bizarre Zoom home school situation.

At forty-seven, white, shaggy in that Wayne Campbell still living in his mom’s basement sort of way, Del Mar is what is called a long-term hotel resident. He has been squatting at the Days Inn off of Tropicana and I-15 for twenty-five days. His room looks like a dorm room from the 1980’s — he even has posters up on the walls.

Del Mar was sacked from his Reno-based truck driving gig. No long-term contract, no unemployment benefits, no medical. He hitchhiked down to Vegas after a couple of months doing pick up handyman work despite statewide shutdown protocols. He figured he’d take his meager savings and gamble some of it to see if he could strike some gold. He did because he was smart enough to play conservatively and has been using his winnings to pay his hotel bill.

He confesses at one point that he may having a drinking problem as he spends every day sleeping and watching television and every night playing slots and drinking comp’d liquor until early the next day. He asks me for resume tips and assures anyone who will listen that he has a job in Reno that will pay him $87,000 a year but he has to get there first.

He gets temporarily banned from the casino because one night he brings his electric guitar and amp into the Sportsbook and starts playing for tips. The graveyard manager squashes that but he decides to ditch his amp and walk around the slot floor playing acoustically until the manager has had enough. He almost gets evicted from the hotel when he hooks up his amp in the pool area and does the same.

Despite the moratorium on home evictions in Nevada, Lisa and her boyfriend Rick are homeless. Knowing that the couple didn’t have the money or education to fight the eviction, their landlord of three years waited until they were out one evening, had a crew clear out their one bedroom apartment and changed the locks. They came home to everything they owned on the sidewalk with some of the more pawnable items gone.

With nowhere else to go, they loaded up Rick’s pickup with what they could salvage and book a week at the hotel. She tells me a week is all they can afford and hopefully will give them time to fix their situation. Rick is fixated on the landlord and has so much anger at the eviction he spends most of his time ranting on his phone and drinking Michelob Ultras in cans.

Lisa drinks, too, but tells me that this is new to her. She never used to drink. These days, she relates, she can’t afford her anti-depressants so booze will have to do. I tell her that alcohol is a depressant and she shrugs. Before things were shut down, she worked as a blackjack dealer at MGM. Rick has been between jobs for a year and change. They walk across the street to the gas station to buy their beer — they don’t gamble and the prices at the casino gift shop are marked up too much.

Gabrielle recognizes that the corporation took care of her during the shutdown but, with three kids, she is wholly focused on her family. She decides to apply for FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) benefits to carve out another paid two weeks at home. She’s healthy so she decides to get her six-year old son circumcised as a medical reason. Both her doctor and HR approve but her vacation time is used to pay the two weeks.

When she returns, the bars are open again but the schools are still closed. She hasn’t paid her rent in four months. Rock meet hard place.

Del Mar, on Day 28 of his stay, is told that he has to vacate the property for 24 hours. He has to take all of his belongings and leave. He can come back and re-book but Nevada law states that if the hotel allows him to stay 29 days, he becomes a legal tenant and cannot be evicted without court intervention so he has to go temporarily. He doesn’t have a car so he loads up what he can carry, stashes the rest behind a dumpster off-property (which will almost certainly be picked through and then trashed before his day is finished) and decides to go spend the night on the Strip.

He doesn’t come back.

After the week is up, Lisa and Rick load up his truck. They have no plan. They have little money. Rick swears he can get work up in Utah but the look in Lisa’s eyes say that she’s heard that song and dance before. Without many choices, they decide to drive to Utah and see what happens.

The world at this point has been in pandemic for 205 days with 215,000 Americans dead from the virus. This is over 1,000 COVID deaths per day. This is just slightly worse than if two fully-loaded 747’s crashed into the sea or a mountain every day for 205 days.

For Gabrielle, Del Mar, Lisa, and Rick things weren’t gravy before having to wonder if a random encounter with some idiot who refuses to wear a mask in public will result in infection and potential death. Combining the hooded figure of the Corona Reaper with the sudden lack of economic possibility has created an uncertainty of purpose, a lack of clarity, and an impenetrable fog through which to navigate.

Will things get back to normal? Doubtful. For these three, normal wasn’t so hot to begin with and I’d hazard a guess that an awful lot of people would agree. Will the new normal feel…normal? Who can say but the most and least adaptable among us. We will go on. That’s what we do. Move forward, one step at a time, one decision after another.

At least that will seem normal.

[marisasingerman]

People always tell me I travel a lot and that they wish they could travel but it’s too expensive. Let me tell you my story. My whole life growing up I never really traveled a lot. I went to San Francisco for a girl scout trip as a kid, but mostly my family’s summers were held in San Diego—which by the way I loved because I loved SeaWorld and the San Diego Zoo. I do remember always hearing about my classmates traveling to Colorado, Mexico, Spain, Italy, France, etc. and it made me think how much I wanted to travel more some day. The summer before high school my dad and I took a father daughter trip to Washington D.C. My aunt and uncle got us a tour of the white house, showed us around the city, and we saw all of the museums, including the life changing Holocaust museum. I was younger though and besides the money, maybe that’s why I didn’t get to travel as much as a kid—because I wasn’t old enough to understand or appreciate all the city had to offer (I did understand and appreciate the Holocaust museum however as it had been something I had studied not only in my public school history, but my Hebrew School history and my Temple as well for my entire life up to that point. My traveling really became fast paced about 3 and a half years ago when I lived in Italy for 2 months when I had a study abroad internship. While I went on a cruise to Mexico, a couple months prior, it didn’t feel like the true traveling experience. It was just vacation. I lived in Italy and it was life-changing. Something in my life just clicked. I learned so much about the culture and so much about myself—enough to make me want to live there forever or keep traveling at the least. I spent 3 Euros to hop on a train and spend the day in the outskirts of Switzerland, where I hope to fully see one day. My brother got me an early birthday gift of 4 nights in London which I saw and did everything I wanted to do. Study abroad—use financial aid, get grants, do a gofundme, save money, or stay in hostels if you can if study abroad isn’t an option. Somewhere around 5 and a half years ago, I learned that the Greyhound existed. This was after taking trips with Southwest all of my freshman year in effort to achieve enough miles to get to New York—let me tell ya’ll, flying is not cheap. I thought my dream of going to New York, seeing where my mom grew up, was impossible. In fact, everyone told me so over an over again that I would never have the money. The first year I didn’t know there was a Road Rewards program. Quick side bar, but those of you that don’t know about the rewards program—I would say it is the best travel rewards program there is and pertains particularly to people traveling on a budget. Essentially you must achieve 16 one-way trips in a one-way period any distance (cost doesn’t matter either) and you get a free roundtrip to anywhere the Greyhound goes—which is all over the US and Canada and Mexico. Ok, back to my story. The 2nd year I didn’t earn enough rewards. The 3rd year -2014 I was going back and forth so many times between school breaks and my sister’s bridal shower, wedding, and bachelorette party, that I had accumulated all but 2 points to go on a free round trip. I really wanted my dream to come true so I decided to go to Flagstaff because I had never seen real snowfall before. That was it. I did it. I got my first free roundtrip and I was going to New York and everywhere else on the East Coast I wanted to visit. Still, I was told I could not afford to go—because of hotels, food, travel, etc. Clearly, people didn’t know that I enjoy traveling on a budget. I did some research and because I had stayed in hostels in other countries I wondered if they existed in the U.S. and sure enough they did. I went on Hostelworld because it was reliable in the past and researched. I got a place right in the city for $50/night, where I met so many people from all over the world! One thing on my bucket list was to see the ball drop in Times Square because my mom and I had watched it for years growing up so I went with someone from Australia who I met in my hostel. It was just as great of an experience as I imagined minus holding my bladder for 14 hours as people peed in cups all around me. I got to eat what has become my favorite dessert ever—the Cronut from the one and only Dominque Ansel. I saw the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, The King and I on Broadway in the orchestra section and could literally see the orchestra under me, Soho, Fifth Ave, 9/11 Museum, etc. I had NY pizza, NY steak, street hot dogs, clam chowder, etc. I did everything I wanted to do and saw everything I wanted to see. I went to Boston and hung out with my friend and stayed with her as she took me around the whole city and showed me Salem too and the outskirts of Boston. I went to Atlantic City and stayed at the Tropicana for $50. I spent a day in Philly which is the place I decided I would like to live permanently. I stayed in the City House Hostel in Philadelphia for $20 and to this day it has become the best hostel I have ever stayed at. I went back to New York to visit some more and I got to see my Mom’s 2 apartments she use to live at in Brooklyn. I should add that in between cities I took a Greyhound which got me enough points for another free trip which I later just used to visit back in Arizona (where I was living for 5 years, but had moved home to California in 2016). Last year I went on my birthright trip to Israel so I used another free roundtrip I had accumulated to go back to New York and fly from there. I wanted to explore more of the Brooklyn area and of course get another Cronut in New York City. I also wanted to get Bantam Bagels because I am obsessed with Shark Tank and wanted to try it and it was as amazing as it looked on tv. I also walked Central Park and saw the Metropolitan Museum of Art because I didn’t see it the first time around because it was too dark and I didn’t know Central Park wasn’t lit up. Now I have accumulated yet another free roundtrip Greyhound and I am excited to say I am going to Vancouver and I have never been to Canada. I have been to 21 states (will be 22 after this trip) and it is my goal to hit all 50. I should be going to Florida in March and that will make it 23. I assure you all, unlike Mr. Getty, I do not have all the money in the world, but I guess in my own way I do and so much more because it’s not about the quantity but the quality of the dollar and how you choose to spend it. I spent $500 on my entire east coast trip. My advice is travel more, don’t just talk about doing it. I took until the summer before my junior year of college to study abroad after I had been saying I wanted to do it for years. Israel, Italy, London, and New York are the 4 places I wanted to go more than anywhere else and I did them all before I turned 25. Study abroad, stay in hostels, eat cheap, so you can explore more, but definitely make sure you try that dish signature to the city. Don’t be afraid to travel alone. I know it sounds scary, but some of the best traveling I have done has been alone. People will warn you about all of the terrors in the world and that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be aware, but it also shouldn’t stop you. You are more likely to die in a car accident driving on the street. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be smart. Be aware of your surroundings and if you stay in hostels that means you’re staying with people from all over the world who likely are in a similar budget position as you to where you can explore places and get dinner with them, but you’re also not tied to them where you couldn’t go off and do your own thing if you wanted. Not to mention you find people to stay with if you travel to their city! Last piece of advice: don’t say I’ll do it later, if you keep pushing it off, later may never come and it will be too late. Travel while you’re young because it is the best time to travel! Don’t wait, the time is now! Any questions, shoot me a message!

[junker-town]

The Pirates’ trade for Chris Archer is amazing and infuriating

The Pirates made a smart move and brought their mistakes into focus.

The Pirates’ trade on Tuesday for Chris Archer is the kind of move every fan should hope their team makes. The Bucs are closer to the fringe of the playoff hunt than actually making the playoffs, but they’re still very much in the hunt, and Archer’s a potential number two starter under team control for three years beyond this one. It’s the perfect win-now-but-also-win-later move for a team that needs to take chances but can’t afford to get burned.

In exchange for their nominal staff ace, the Rays are extracting real value from Pittsburgh. Austin Meadows is an outfielder who hasn’t torn the cover off the ball in Triple-A but looked great in his few weeks of major league action this year. Tyler Glasnow is a fireballer who’s bad now but could be great later. Both are former top prospects, cheap, and with loads of potential at just 23 and 24 years old. Tampa Bay’s also getting a player whose name we don’t know yet, but whom the Pirates have acknowledged will be “significant.”

That’s OK. Archer is 29, relatively cheap himself, and has a cannon for a right arm. His 4.31 ERA isn’t exciting, but his underlying metrics all say he’s a better pitcher than that. It should help him to get out of the AL East and into the NL Central, and he’ll get to stay in a pitcher’s ballpark. (Tropicana Field and PNC Park both qualify.) It isn’t good that the Pirates love fastballs and Archer’s heater has gotten smoked this year, but that doesn’t mean they’re walking into a train wreck. The Pirates — the Pirates! — made the biggest trade of the deadline, and that’s thrilling for a fanbase that’s used to the other side of these deals.

But — in a perfect encapsulation of how annoying it is to be a Pirates fan and how jaded I’ve become in that role — the Archer deal also feels terrible.

That feeling has nothing to do with Archer or this move in a vacuum. But it has everything to do with how the Pirates have conducted themselves over the last five years.

The first problem is that the Pirates are only months removed from trading a better pitcher for Archer and getting back way less than they just gave up.

In January, the Pirates shipped Gerrit Cole to the Astros following two underwhelming seasons. The return was a four-player package: third baseman Colin Moran, starter Joe Musgrove, reliever Michael Feliz, and minor league outfielder Jason Martin.

Musgrove looks like a pretty decent mid-rotation starter. Moran hits OK but loses most of the value he creates by playing terrible defense. Feliz might be a solid late-inning reliever one day, but for now, he’s been bad enough to get sent to Triple-A. Martin’s now the team’s’ No. 14 prospect. And the Pirates gave up Gerrit freaking Cole with two years of team control left.

Cole went to Houston, started throwing more fastballs and fewer sinkers, and now looks again like one of the best pitchers alive. The Pirates’ decision to move him for spare parts looked horrible at the time and looks even worse now, in light of what they just sent to Tampa to get a worse pitcher. A Cole-Archer one-two punch would’ve ruled — and with Cole still around, Archer would be joining a team with a record several games better.

The other disappointment is that the Pirates have had more opportune moments to make this sort of splash, and they’ve passed on all of them.

The length of Archer’s contract makes him more appealing than any two-month rental, but it hurts that the Pirates are making this addition now, when their status as contenders is tenuous. Their win against the Cubs Tuesday night made 14 in 17 games, but at 56-52, the Pirates are still three games out of the NL’s second wild-card spot. Their FanGraphs odds to make the playoffs are 17 percent, and even if they get in, they’ll almost surely be stuck in a coin flip to make an NLDS. They lost wild card games in both 2014 and 2015, because they got stuck facing Madison Bumgarner and Jake Arrieta at the peaks of their powers.

When the Pirates had elite teams in 2013, ‘14, and ‘15, they narrowly lost the Central to the Cardinals all three times. One of those years, rumors connected them seriously to Jon Lester. Twice, reports connected them to David Price.

Grant Brisbee gets it just right:

This is the year they’re taking risks. This is the year they trade huge pieces of a potential future. This is the deadline where they vault ahead of their competition. The one where they’re seven freaking games back in the NL Central. The one after they traded Gerrit Cole for magic beans.

They wound up getting J.A. Happ at the 2015 deadline, when Happ was still bad. He pitched brilliantly for the Pirates but never got to start a playoff game and left in the winter, when the Pirates decided $36 million over three years was too much to spend on him.

A deadline lightning bolt on this order might’ve helped avoid wild card games in any of those years, including the year the Pirates won it and then lost to the Cardinals. Archer will help in the future, but he probably won’t mean a playoff berth now.

This mix of euphoria and regret sums up the Pirate fan experience well.

Don’t get me wrong: It’s better than sitting at the bottom of a well of sadness. That’s how it felt when the team shipped out Andrew McCutchen in the offseason, even though that deal made sense and has worked out. That the Pirates are even nominal contenders this year is great, and it beats the hell out of what this team could’ve been in 2018. It’s good that their front office seems to have learned the cost of not making a good team better.

But this is what the Pirates have created. Their city slammed them for years for not spending aggressively to get good, then for not doing enough to bolster the elite teams they had a few years ago, then selling off those teams’ most valuable single player for cents on the dollar. That’s why this likable team has played to a more than half-empty home stadium this season. And it’s why a trade that should feel perfect doesn’t.

[junker-town]

The Rays are preparing for Hurricane Irma to hit while they are traveling

With a scary forecast, the team is doing everything they can before they hit the road.

Only a week after the Rangers and Astros took up temporary residence in Tropicana Field due to Hurricane Harvey’s impact on Houston, the Rays are now preparing for Hurricane Irma to hit while they are out of town this weekend.

The team already bumped their planned departure from Wednesday to Thursday in order to allow everyone to spend more time preparing with their families, and according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times the players are using it wisely to make as many contingency plans as possible.

That includes packing for extra days of travel in case they can’t return to Florida, and sending family out of town to either off-season homes or to the residences of other families just in case. For the things that can’t be taken with them, like cars, players are moving them to higher ground before the road trip.

Multiple players, including Evan Longoria and Steve Souza Jr., noted how Harvey is effecting their preparations and mindset. Longoria mentioned that without Harvey happening so recently those in the path of Irma might not be taking it as seriously, a slight silver lining, while Souza admitted that “everybody is a little on edge” because of the damage they witnessed from Harvey.

For other staff who don’t travel, the Rays’ office will be shutdown after Wednesday to let them have time to prepare for what might be coming as well.

The team has also reportedly discussed relocation with the league already, which is a concern for both them and the Marlins depending on Irma’s path. Tropicana Field is not classified as safe enough for a shelter but could serve as a staging area for emergency services after the storm.

The Marlins, also heading on a road trip starting Thursday, are allowing all families of staff and players to travel with them to Philadelphia and Atlanta.

With Irma currently classified as a Category 5 storm, advanced preparation can only do so much. Both teams and organizations doing the best they can to mitigate damage is smart though, and being flexible for employees and players is the least they can do in the face of this storm.